The Difference a Letter Makes
by Mariann's
Summary: AU PoA - Third year - what could happen if Sirius Black had one moment of reason while trying to catch the Rat at Hogwarts? - SBRL slash - Complete
1. The Letter

A/N: AU Third year - what could have happened if Sirius had found one moment of reason while trying to reach Pettigrew at Hogwarts?

There are some quotes from Prisoner of Azkaban scattered through the text - just tiny snippets - I leave it to you readers to find and recognise them -))

**The Difference a Letter Makes**

**1. The Letter**

The forest seemed to be going on forever. Thick undergrowth spread through most of it, only interrupted by narrow paths trampled down by the strange and mysterious creatures which roamed among the trees. Unusual cries and noises could be heard in the night, while it was almost bereft of sounds during the day. Only birds seemed to make themselves heard when the sun was out. But in spite of the many magical and even dangerous beasts living in the forest it seemed peaceful on the morning of a crisp fall day, which promised to become a sunny day in the most wonderful colours that nature produces in autumn.

The silence at the edge of the forest was disturbed by the sound of the panting of a huge black dog whose paws drummed against the grassy ground. The dog halted, lifted his nose in the air, sniffed and let out a short bark. Had anyone been around to hear it, they would have noticed that the bark sounded happy and relieved. The dog continued and now entered the forest for good, trotted ahead in a more confident manner. It never stopped its sniffling, in the air, on the ground, and it looked around warily, as if to see whether it was being followed. Deeper and deeper it penetrated a forest that none of the people living in its vicinity would even dare to invade.

Not that there were that many people living on the edge of that forest. Only a couple of farms had withstood time there and only a handful of inhabitants of those farms were holding on. They were convinced that the whole forest was cursed. No one knew of anyone who had ever really been inside of the vast wooded area. It seemed like it was forbidden. But some of the farmers or members of their families had glimpsed the strangest kinds of creatures from its edges, and most told tales about wolves howling in the nights of the full moon, though no one had ever seen them. Why, it wasn't even 15 years since these howls had ceased. Old Mr McGregor still looked for the man who must have finally shot that wolf. He hadn't been too concerned though, as there was not one single sheep he had ever lost to it. Still, it was easier without the threat of having rabid wolves in the area.

The dog did not seem to have a care or a fear to invade that seemingly impenetrable forest. Once it had determined there was no one near it trotted on, sniffing its way along.

It was a strange dog. Massive, but appallingly thin. The fur was thick, the hairs quite long and matted. It was dirty. The tail was feathered with long tresses of fine black hair, equally matted. The ears flopped and bopped up and down in rhythm with the trot.

While the size of the dog was surprising, as it was even bigger than an Irish Wolfhound, the most startling property of the creature were its eyes. They were of a sparkling light blue, very pale, sometimes almost stormy grey. They were intelligent, alert eyes. Something was odd about this dog, it seemed to be very cunning, knowing exactly how to avoid people who could see it.

The dog had good reason to stay out of the way of anyone, Muggle or wizard. It was not a dog after all, it was the infamous escaped convict Sirius Black, on the run from recapture. He was on his way to Hogwarts, the school of witchcraft and wizardry, having only one single thought in his head: catch the traitor Peter Pettigrew, who had framed him after committing the crime for which Sirius had been imprisoned in Azkaban, the dreaded wizarding gaol, guarded by soul sucking Dementors. Only one other small thought was in Sirius' mind, to protect his godson Harry Potter from Pettigrew.

For Peter Pettigrew was an Animagus, too, a wizard who could transform into a rat. No one but Sirius knew he was still alive. Sirius, himself an Animagus and currently in his alter form of the black dog, had seen the proof of what he had always suspected, when the minister of magic, Cornelius Fudge, had left him a copy of the Daily Prophet, the wizarding newspaper, back in July, during one of his regular inspections of the prison. Sirius still had the photo from the front page, which showed a wizarding family. One of the children had the rat on his shoulder. The rat, which Sirius recognized immediately. It was all the incentive he needed to regain strength. Enough to slip out of his cell, through the corridors and finally out of the fortress. He had managed to swim to the shore, not too difficult a task for the dog as the island wasn't too far away from the shore. Then he had travelled south to get a glimpse of his godson.

And finally, having accomplished that, he had turned northwards again, travelled in a steady lope to gain safety in the Forbidden Forest. He needed to be close to Hogwarts, inside the grounds, where there would be no Dementors. Sirius was certain that the headmaster of Hogwarts, Albus Dumbledore, would never allow a Dementor access to the grounds of the school.

And so he sighed with relief, when he caught the familiar scent of the Forbidden Forest. It was known terrain, had he not spent countless nights of the full moon here with his friends, back in his school days, when they were still all together? How the loss of James and Lily Potter still hurt him. And even more he felt the loss of Remus Lupin, his best friend and lover, even though Remus was still alive, wherever he was.

Remus had been the reason why Sirius, Peter and James had become Animagi. He was a werewolf and after having found out his secret, the three boys had been determined to find a way to help Remus cope with the terrible transformations during the full moon nights. And they had found the way, became Animagi, became animals. As animals they were able to join him on his full moon nights, helped him to remain much more calm and prevented him from harming himself as he had done before.

'All because of the dratted rat!' Sirius thought, 'but just you wait, I'll get you soon enough!'

By nightfall he had reached the centre of the forest. He looked for a place to sleep. There was a stream nearby and he decided to go in and take a bath, first in his dog form, then again, as a human. He cleaned himself as well as he could. His robes, still the coarse grey tattered prison robes, were beyond repair.

But Sirius had a goal. The four friends had stored a secret stash somewhere quite close by on the night before they had left Hogwarts. They had decided to dig in their first wands and some other memories from school, and if this stash was still in place Sirius would have something different to wear and more important, he'd have a wand again. A means to survive the coming winter in the forest. He finished the bath in the cold water and shivered when he got out.

His human form was an even more frightening sight than his dog form. Skeletal was the body, almost dead were the eyes, matted and tangled the hair that reached his elbows. His teeth were yellow and he had a long beard. Over all he looked like he had not been taking care of himself for a decade or longer. Not losing as much as a thought about all that though, he pulled the old robes over his head and transformed back into the dog.

He still hadn't eaten, and so he sniffed around until he was able to catch a squirrel. It was devoured as it was, right there. Then Sirius drank some water from the stream and finally he looked around for a tree whose roots would make for a good bed. Once he had found one he lowered himself into the hollow space and curled up in a tight ball. Sleep came, and with it came the nightmares. They were bearable only in his dog form. He had attempted to sleep as a human twice and both times he had given up and transformed, before he was able to go back to sleep.

When the next morning dawned, he was up again. He moved on, quickly, knowing where he was going. He walked for most of the day, then he found the place he was looking for. He sniffed around carefully before he approached it. The spot was beyond the Shrieking Shack, the derelict looking house which had served as a cage where Remus had spent his full moon nights in his school days. The stash had been buried in a clearing not far away from the shack, but it was fairly close to Hogsmeade, where Sirius expected Dementors to be. He could get there in dog form and he could dig in dog form, so when he had found the spot, he didn't lose time, he started digging right away and found what he had been looking for. It was a good sized box, completely untouched. No one had been here before him. And apart from Remus and Peter no one alive knew about this. Sirius looked and sniffed around, but no Dementor was close by, so he transformed and grabbed the box out of the hole. Night was falling and he got back into the forest unseen. Relief washed over him again. So far, everything had worked out fine. He would hide the remaining three wands again, just taking out his own.

Once he was well away from the edge of the forest, and far enough away from Hagrid, the game keeper's cabin, Sirius sat down and opened the box. His hands were trembling. This box bore so many memories which started to come back to him now. It was painful to look at its contents. There was his own first wand, ebony, with a dragon heartstring. He picked it out of the box and immediately a warmth bubbled up in his hand, the spark of the re-bonding with his wand.

'It still fits me,' he thought delightedly and waved the wand.

Like the first time he had held it in his hand in Ollivander's shop, the wand spat out sparks and red stars. Sirius smiled and said:

"Lumos!"

The wand lighted up and there was another wave of relief going through Sirius. He let himself flop to the ground, laughing giddily and feeling happy for the first time in more than twelve years. His magic was still there within him. He hadn't lost the ability to use a wand like most of the other prisoners in Azkaban who had felt the Dementors much worse than Sirius. Still, he had worried, whether the Animagus transformation was maybe the only magical ability he had left.

Then he ventured deeper into the box. There were their school robes. Each of the four had put one of the robes inside the box. There were four letters – short letters, they all wrote back then with a short memory of their school days and what their friendship meant to them. Sirius didn't read them. He looked down further, found a knife and an empty roll of parchment and several other things which had been significant to them.

Sirius decided to hide the box again. If he needed anything he could always come back, but for now it was enough to take his old robe out and see whether it still fitted him. It was too wide, but almost long enough. It felt warm and comfortable and soft. Sirius pointed his wand at the coarse prison robes, which were rough and didn't protect from the cold at all, in spite of the thick fabric. He burned them in seconds. The black robes were all he had now. He'd have to spend most of his time in dog form anyway and Padfoot didn't freeze easily. Not outside of Azkaban in any case. What was most important was that he had a wand again. There were hardly any words to describe his happiness about that fact. He could do magic again, he felt like a wizard again.

Sirius used this ability to hide the box. He then started by transfiguring several pebbles into things he needed, like a blanket and even boots. Then he started to explore his closer surroundings.

During the next few nights he moved around Hogwarts in dog form. All the while he saw the moon waxing and thought of Remus. And then one evening, about five days before the full moon at the end of October, Sirius saw someone coming out of the castle, who looked like he was going for a longer walk. It was close to dusk, and he couldn't see who it was. He didn't expect to know the man anyway. So Sirius hid in the thick undergrowth at the edge of the forest. The man came closer, passed the Whomping Willow on the way and stood still, contemplating the tree. Sirius watched him, mesmerized and finally he knew why, when he caught a whiff of the man's scent.

His eyes weren't too good as a dog, but his nose was fine just like a dog's. And the scent wafting over to him now was a scent he would have even recognised in his human form: Remus.

'Remus! What's he doing here? Oh Merlin, if I could only run to him now. If only he'd listen to me, I might get his help. Remus, my love…'

It took all his determination not to leave his cover straight away. But then reason came through. He couldn't stay this close. If he had caught Remus' scent, then Remus must be able to smell him as well, his nose was as fine as the dog's and it even worked in his human form. Sirius drew back immediately. He slowly retreated into the forest, crawled and finally turned around to find his hiding spot.

He sat down to think about the new situation. If Remus was there he might go and check the secret stash. He'd know immediately that Sirius had already been there. What was there to do? Then he remembered the parchment in the box. He transformed, opened the box and took it out. Transfiguring something into a quill and some water into ink was one thing. Then he started to write.

* * *

Remus Lupin was back home. That's at least what he had felt at the first moment he stepped up the familiar stairs to the main entrance of Hogwarts. He was back to teach Defence against the Dark Arts at the urge of Headmaster Dumbledore. To ensure the safety of the children, he would be supplied regularly with the Wolfsbane potion, a potion his father had developed during long years of research. The potion helped him to keep his own mind during the transformations. It meant he would be free to transform in his chambers as he was a harmless wolf once the transformation was completed. 

But Remus had not thought of the memories. After the first few days they started to haunt him. He turned around a corner and expected to hear James calling after Lily. He walked up a staircase and saw Peter running down to get to a class in time. And he passed some nooks and corners and remembered Sirius and he kissing and cuddling there. It became so painful that he spent all his time going straight from classes to meals and from there to his chambers.

The teachers' quarters were mostly on the ground floor. There was a corridor leading from the Entrance Hall to the area where the teachers spent their free time and had their chambers. The teacher's lounge was there, too, with access to an orchard and a fairly large garden, hidden from the students by a thick, impenetrable hedge. This was the only area Remus was free from the memories as they had never managed to get even close to it as students.

When he felt like he was in a cage he went for walks. He thought everything over and over again, it wouldn't let him rest. Ever since the day Sirius had been torn from him, he had been confused. His heart told him, that Sirius could never have done it. His reason though had always contemplated the facts he knew to be facts. But whenever he thought about those facts, all he really knew was that Sirius had been found on the spot, laughing like a maniac, his wand in his hand. And he tried to remember the trial until he remembered that there had been no trial. The hearing then? Not much of that either, and he had not been allowed to attend. That had practically been between Bartemius Crouch, the head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement and Sirius alone. And then Sirius was shipped off to Azkaban. The reasoning of the ministry officials made sense. And yet there had always been that little bit of doubt remaining in Remus' head and heart. In the first two years of Sirius' imprisonment he had tried numerous times to get a visitor's permit to see him and talk to him. He had believed, that if he could hear it all from Sirius, he could figure out the true story. It had been denied, either on the grounds that he was a werewolf and thus a Dark Creature or that he had been known to be Sirius Black's lover and therefore he was a suspect himself. After two years he had given up. He surmised that Sirius was by now as good as mad and would probably not be in a state to even be coherent anymore.

But he had never stopped loving Sirius. It had been terrible to live without him. First of all there was a slight physical pain from being away from his bonded mate. Then there were the transformations, horrible again, as they had been before the pack had met and stopped Moony from doing harm to himself. Numerous times he had been visited by Poppy Pomfrey who would not leave Remus even in his darkest days. She was one of his very few anchors in that stormy ocean that his life had become. And numerous times had she found Remus almost torn to pieces after his transformations. Edward Lupin, Remus' father, had been able to heal the smaller wounds, but when Remus was found too injured he had always called on Poppy. In all her years of caring for Remus after his transformations at school she had learned to love the young man like one of her own sons. While Remus hated her to 'fuss', he secretly enjoyed being cuddled and she had never made it a secret that she was not the least bit afraid because he was a werewolf. There was never even so much as a flinch in the mediwitch's reaction to him. One reason why he loved her back just like a second mother.

Now he was in her care again. Just six years ago Edward had brought the potion to completion, it was highly complex, but Severus Snape, the school's potions master, was well capable of brewing it. There was still something left to do for Poppy, as the transformations themselves remained quite painful and took a lot out of Remus.

The next full moon was near. It would be on the night after Halloween. Remus had five doses of the awful brew left to swallow. The wolf was high in his blood, in spite of his potion and he couldn't stand the closed rooms. He went out for a walk, idly choosing his way without giving much care of where he went. He thought about his teaching, how much he loved the students and how they seemed to thoroughly like him, too. He had already recognized the Weasley twins as images of himself and his friends at school and while they amused him greatly, he had been able to make it clear, that his class was a no-nonsense zone for them. They had accepted his teaching in trade though and he quickly noticed, that many of their antics were born out of boredom or unsatisfying teaching styles. He knew they were very good at potions, even though Snape didn't give them the marks they deserved. And he soon noticed they were excelling in his classes as well. So one day after about two or three weeks he had kept them back after class and had arranged an agreement between them. They would not disrupt his classes and he didn't keep his eyes out for their antics outside of his classes. Which the twins had accepted with a huge grin on their faces.

To Remus' surprise he found himself in front of the Whomping Willow. He stood frozen and closed his eyes. A flood of memories washed over him, as the tree started to get in gear and Remus quickly jumped out of the reach of the angry twigs and branches. He thought about going to the shack. But then he shook his head and turned. He walked in the direction of Hagrid's cabin instead, now with the idea to look how Hagrid did after his disastrous first class. While he continued on his path he sniffed the air. Was there a slight memory of Sirius' scent? Remus looked around. He knew the Headmaster thought Sirius would be coming to Hogwarts, but he couldn't be there, could he? Not with the Dementors around, it would be impossible for Sirius to cross their lines and they were positioned all around the gates.

Remus knocked on Hagrid's door. He heard Fang, the boarhound bark as Hagrid came to the door and opened it.

"Oh, it's you! Good evening, Remus, come on in!"

"Hi Hagrid. I thought I wanted to see how you were doing after your ordeal with your first class."

"Quite okay, Remus, thank ye. Sit down, please. Want some tea?"

"That would be lovely, thank you."

Remus took a seat at the table. Once they had a steaming mug of tea in front of them, he looked up and asked Hagrid:

"Hagrid, what do you think, could Sirius be on the grounds?"

"Haven't seen anything that would indicate it, Remus. – Why?"

"Just because…"

He took a sip of the tea. Then he asked in a low voice:

"Do you think he really did it? You've seen him just before he took flight and Peter went after him, did you think he looked like he could have done it?"

Hagrid stared at him.

"What makes ye say somethin' like this, lad? He was caught on the spot, wasn't he?"

"Yes, but do we really know what happened? I mean none of the Aurors who arrived there saw what happened, they only found Sirius, and Sirius must have been almost out of his mind."

"True. – Well, he seemed out of his mind of grief, when he got there. I had already gone through the house an' had found the bodies of James an' Lily. He argued with me abou' 'arry. Asked me t' give him the boy. But I had me orders from Dumbledore an' he wouldn't act agains' 'em. Gave me the bike instead. Said, he wouldn't need it anymore."

"Hm. He loved that bike. He must have known something already, something that would either kill him or put him into Azkaban. If only I could find out what really happened."

"D'you think they'll catch 'im again?" Hagrid asked.

"I don't know. I should think so, yes…"

When Remus returned to the castle half an hour later he was trying to push all thoughts of Sirius out of his mind. He went to bed and even found sleep.

* * *

For several nights Sirius looked for a way to get his letter to Remus. He could only hope Remus would be convinced by the contents and do as he had begged him. It was difficult to sniff out where he would find Remus and how to get there. He had hidden in some shrubs on the school grounds when students were out and had learned that Remus was teaching Defence against the Dark Arts. He had to smile about that and wondered whether the students knew about Remus being a werewolf, but supposed they were not told. He wondered in what house Harry was and had his reply to this question when the first Quidditch match of the year took place and Sirius was able to sneak onto the stands to watch Gryffindor play against Hufflepuff. And even though the light was dim and the weather was awful, he could see Harry playing as the seeker. The familiar red Quidditch robes he had worn himself when he was on the team were a dead give-away. Sirius' heart filled with love and pride to see Harry fly for his own house. Whenever he caught a glimpse of his godson he was baffled again at how much Harry looked like James. He wondered whether anyone had told Harry about Sirius being his godfather. 'Probably not,' he thought. Then he wondered, if Harry knew about Remus having been a friend of his parents, but dismissed that thought as well. Remus liked to remain very private and he would not have told Harry for fear of causing the boy sorrow. 

Sirius saw how the match went lost. To his distraught he had to witness his godson falling from the broom and dropping fifty feet down to the ground. He was relieved when he noticed that Albus had slowed down the fall and that they brought Harry back up to the castle, seemingly alive. Then he saw the broom being destroyed by the Whomping Willow.

'Oh dear! That one's lost for good,' he thought, while hiding out from the Dementors who had swarmed the area and had caused Harry to fall. Sirius was sure it had been their fault. He had seen Harry look down and lose conscience. 'What did they make you relive, Harry?' Sirius asked himself. He could only imagine that it must have been something horrible, since it affected him so badly.

Sirius still hadn't been able to find a way to give Remus his letter. He had watched the moon and decided to wait until after the full moon. He also watched for any sign of Remus coming to the Shrieking Shack, but he did not turn up. Sirius wondered, if he locked himself up inside of the castle now. He could hardly bear the thought of his Remus in a cage.

Then, four days after the full moon, Sirius ventured into the castle for the first time. He waited until well after midnight, then sniffed his way around. He knew the secret passages better than anyone and didn't need to pass through the main entrance to get inside. His first idea was to look for the teacher's quarters, but they hadn't been able to get in there as students, so he didn't expect to get in there now. Then he thought to find Remus' classroom. He sniffed all the trails he could find of Remus and the strongest scents he followed. They led him to his destination soon enough and Sirius found the door to the classroom open. He knew there was another door which would lead him into the office and expected it to be locked. He tried several unlocking spells, the third of which worked. He entered the office quickly and closed the door behind him. Then he turned on the candles to get some light. He looked through the office and smiled. It had the typical Remus feel, and when Sirius looked around he could see several things Remus already had when they had been together. There was a pile of homework parchments on the desk. Sirius didn't touch a thing, but he decided to put his letter just under the top parchment. He read the name on it: Hermione Granger, Gryffindor, Third Year. Werewolves! 'Hm. She must be one of Harry's classmates. Neat handwriting. Looks like she's good at what she does… would Remus really treat the subject of werewolves with his students?'

Sirius didn't linger. He left the office, looked around and locked it as it had been, then went to the classroom door and opened it a tiny bit, peered out and, when no one seemed to be around, went out into the hall and closed the door. He transformed immediately and crept back out of the castle. He made for the forest as fast as he could and hid again. He had made himself some sort of a hiding spot up in a tree, where he could be as warm as was possible. He knew he had just put his fate into the hands of his old lover. He could only wait for the outcome.

* * *

Remus got up quite easily the first time after the full moon. He had returned to classes the day before. Now he went to breakfast and felt quite well again. Poppy met him at the breakfast table and looked him over. He smiled. 

"I'm fine again, Poppy, no need to fuss about me."

"I'm just giving you a quick check. You do look fine to me though, Remus."

Remus was early and classes would only start an hour later, but he thought to make up for lost time and grade some of the essays he still had to work through. He'd promised Hermione to grade her werewolf essay, even though she would not have had to finish it. But he would reward her for all her work. He sat down at his desk, picked up the essay from the pile and was taken aback when he saw a piece of parchment that lay right underneath Hermione's essay. He put the essay back on the pile, taking the letter instead and started to read it. The familiar script made his heart pound.

"Moony

Peter Pettigrew is alive and in the castle! He is in his rat form and he's a pet of one of the Weasley boys. Is there a way you can get hold of the rat, take it to Dumbledore and make it show himself? Does the potions master have some truth serum maybe? Ask him about the secret keeper and where he went after Halloween 1981! And then contact me, please.

I implore you, Remus, help me! I didn't do it, I wasn't the spy. And I still love you."

In place of a signature there was nothing but the print of a big paw. Attached to the letter was the photo of the Weasleys and there, on Ron's shoulder, sat Scabbers, the rat. Remus almost fainted. So his doubts had been right! He wanted to believe Sirius desperately. He looked up at the clock on the wall. There was still enough time to show the letter to Albus Dumbledore. He went back to the Great Hall to see if the Headmaster was still there.

Dumbledore was just getting up and coming out. Remus stopped him and asked him quietly:

"Albus, would you have a moment of time for me, please?"

"Of course, Remus, what is it?" the kind old Headmaster asked back.

"Can we go to your office?"

"Naturally. Come along, dear boy."

They went to the Headmaster's office and sat down. Without another word, Remus took the letter and the newspaper clip out of his pocket and passed them to Dumbledore. Dumbledore read the letter, saw the clip and demanded:

"This asks for some explanations, I'd think. Why does Sirius say Peter Pettigrew is a rat?"

Remus sighed. Then he plunged into a quick explanation:

"I don't want to miss class time, Albus, so I make it very short, but I'll answer any question you might have when we have more time. James, Sirius and Peter had become Animagi in their fifth year. They did it to be able to join me on full moon nights. Do you remember when I stopped having bad wounds, only having the odd scratch anymore after my transformations? I would expect Poppy to have told you something of her observations. When they were with me I would not hurt myself, the wolf was playful, but calm most of the time."

"They were quite foolish, but I'd say the end justified the means, you had some amazing friends there, Remus."

"Yes, Albus, they were. The best. But we couldn't tell anyone, none of them ever registered. I suspect that's how Sirius got out of Azkaban. But, Albus, if what he says here is true, then I don't even want to think about the hell he's gone through!"

"Neither do I. This looks like Ron Weasley. Do you know whether he has a rat with him here?"

"No, but I can always ask him to stay back after class and then make him get the rat. If it's really Peter I can only hope he doesn't suspect anything yet. Without him there's no way we can prove Sirius's innocence."

"And you know how to force an Animagus to show himself?"

"Yes, we learned it in case one of them would have trouble transforming back."

"Very good. When do you have the Gryffindor third years for the next time?"

"This afternoon coincidentally."

"Good. Please ask Mr Weasley to take you to his dormitory and procure that rat. We will have to go from there. We'll ask Severus to come up with some Veritaserum and if he stays with us through the questioning, I would expect him to see the truth, too. He would be a very reliable witness, especially since you've been rather enemies."

"I agree with you. I'll do as you say."

When the afternoon class came to an end, Remus took a deep breath and asked Ron:

"Ron, can you stay behind after class, please? I have a favour to ask of you."

"Yes, Professor."

Ron walked up to the teacher's desk and Remus noticed that Harry and Hermione stayed behind, too. Remus turned to Ron and asked:

"Ron, is it true, that you have a pet rat?"

"Yes, Scabbers. – Why?"

"We have reason to believe something's wrong with this rat, do you think I could have a look at it?"

"He's up in my dormitory, but I can get him. He's not feeling too well right now."

"Do you mind if I accompany you up there so you can get it for me?"

"No, that's okay."

Remus went up to Gryffindor tower with the students. Harry and Hermione stayed close to Ron through it all. Remus was amused at how they were anxious, but then he soothed their worries:

"You are not in trouble at all, but I'll have to ask you to come with me to the Headmaster with the rat, Ron. – And no, I'm afraid you two can't come along. You'll be informed once the investigation will be over."

Remus went with Ron all the way to the dormitory. Ron took Scabbers out of his bed and showed him to Remus. The rat started to tremble immediately.

"I'm sorry to do this, Ron, but I'll have to freeze him. – Petrificus Totalus!"

"Why did you do this, Professor? What's wrong with Scabbers?"

"You have to come with me, Ron, I think we will owe you a thorough explanation of this whole thing. He's your pet after all."

"To the Headmaster?"

"Yes. Come along, please. We won't hurt him, I promise."

Once they had arrived at Dumbledore's office, they settled down on some chairs, while Dumbledore called Snape through the fireplace. He asked him to bring a vial of Veritaserum along. Only minutes later, Severus came out of the fireplace and looked around. He saw Ron and frowned.

"Severus, please take a seat. Now, Remus, can you please do what you have to do to that rat?"

"You said you won't hurt him, Professor!" Ron exclaimed.

"I won't. If this rat is really a rat it will not do him any harm, but if it's what I think it is, then you'll see what comes out of it. And then we'll explain, okay?"

"Okay."

Ron handed Remus the petrified rat. Remus forced it to transform. Ron watched with the same wide eyes as Severus how the rat turned into a small man with little hair and watery eyes.

"Pettigrew!" Snape spat.

He started to have an idea, why they wanted Veritaserum to be administered.

"Indeed, Peter Pettigrew," Albus remarked.

Remus had continued to mutter another spell, then bound Pettigrew with ropes.

"Okay, I have put a hold Animagus spell over him, he cannot transform back until this spell is lifted. – Hello, Peter…"

"Remus! Headmaster! Severus!"

Peter Pettigrew squeaked. Ron was sitting in front of him and stared. Slowly he turned to Remus and asked:

"Is that the Peter Pettigrew who is supposedly dead after Sirius Black killed him and Harry's parents?"

"Spot on, Ron!" confirmed Remus.

Severus stood up and went to Pettigrew. He lifted his left arm as well as he could through the ropes and pushed back the sleeve of a very worn set of robes. He dropped the hand in disgust. Albus asked:

"Does he have the mark?"

Severus only nodded. He handed the vial to Albus and looked over Pettigrew, appalled. Remus looked at Severus questioningly. Severus only pushed back the sleeve on his own left arm and showed him his Dark Mark. Ron's eyes widened even more. This surely meant that Snape himself had been a Death Eater.

"Severus had returned to our side as a spy about a year before Voldemort fell, Remus. It takes one to see one."

"Well done, Severus," was all, Remus could say before turning to Peter.

"Now I'd like to know from you who was James' and Lily's secret keeper, Peter?"

"How should I know? Sirius was to be their secret keeper."

"You wouldn't know why Sirius would explicitly tell us to ask you this question?" Remus inquired.

Ron admired his calm demeanour.

"Why should I? He's been the spy as you all know! Wouldn't you do better to go after him, now that he's out of Azkaban?"

"Don't try to fool me, Peter, you know that's not possible. You know I can SMELL your emotions, and I smell fear! I can smell you're lying, Peter! And you have the Dark Mark."

"But he tried to kill me and now he's out to kill Harry and me!"

"He may have tried to kill you, Peter, but don't you want to tell us the truth without forcing us to give you the truth serum? I hear it's not very pleasant to take, is it, Severus?"

"No, it's not," Snape confirmed.

He watched with quite an amount of amusement, how Lupin took his old friend apart.

"I am telling the truth, Remus, I knew all along he'd not forget me, not even in Azkaban. He'll be after you next, I'm sure."

"Oh, you are? Well, there's one thing I'd like to have you explain, Peter, just a little detail, really. If he had cast the curse that killed all those Muggles around you, how many were there again? Ten? Twelve? Never mind how many, well, how do you think he could have achieved killing the Muggles and not kill you as well? You were, as I remember, right amidst them… how do you explain the finger the Aurors found? The finger that's missing from your right hand there!"

Pettigrew remained silent. Dumbledore picked up the vial, conjured a small goblet of water and added three drops inside. Remus and Severus helped him administer the contents and then they waited for a few minutes for the serum to start working. Ron watched and listened to the following questioning with baited breath. He would have some interesting news for Harry soon, he knew that.

"Back to the task at hand. Peter, who was the Potter's secret keeper?" Dumbledore asked.

"I was."

Dumbledore, Remus and Severus stared. Then looked at each other. Then Dumbledore asked:

"So what happened after the Fidelius charm was cast?"

"A few days after the spell was cast, I was summoned to the Master. The Dark Lord was most pleased when I told him that everything was in place and he could get to the Potters. He went, but never returned. I had to hide immediately, but Sirius found me in London the very next afternoon and wanted to kill me. I thought of a diversion and shouted at him how he could have betrayed James and Lily, then cut off my finger, caused the gas explosion, which killed the Muggles and transformed at the same moment."

The three others looked at each other and finally, Dumbledore asked further questions:

"What did you do after that explosion?"

"I lived among the rats for a few weeks, until the worst was over, then found a wizarding family where I could live safely. I kept an eye on the Daily Prophet. There were still enough of the Dark Lord's followers out there, I was afraid they would kill me for being the one who sent the Dark Lord to the Potters."

Dumbledore turned to Remus and Severus.

"That can only mean one thing: Sirius Black is innocent. He has been sent to Azkaban for a crime he had not committed. We have to find him, Remus, before the Dementors find him."

Remus nodded. He turned to Ron:

"Ron, you can return to your house. Please only speak about this to Hermione and Harry! We will call you up for explanations once all of this is through, so do not under any circumstances tell anyone else about it. It could cost an innocent man his life if you are not careful. I would even suggest to only talk to your friends away from anyone else. Okay?"

"Okay, Professor. May I go now?"

"You may go," said Dumbledore.


	2. Free!

**2. Free!**

After being released from the Headmaster's office, Ron had difficulties not to run back up to the Gryffindor tower. By the time he reached the portrait of the Fat Lady, he panted heavily and gave her the password, still panting.

"You seem to be in a hurry, young man, what happened to you, dear?" she asked.

"Saw something incredible. Will you let me in now?"

"But of course."

The door swung open and he entered the common room. As he expected, Hermione and Harry were still there. He looked at the time. It was shortly before dinnertime. His friends ran up to him.

"What was that all about, did they give you any explanation? And where is Scabbers?" Hermione asked.

"Yes, they did, but let's not talk about it here, let's go down to Myrtle's bathroom! No one's supposed to hear."

"Okay."

They all left the common room as if they wanted to go down to the Great Hall early. But on the second floor they took a turn and went into the girl's lavatory. Hermione spell locked the door and looked back at Ron.

"Tell us!" she said.

"Well, we got to Dumbledore's office, he told us to sit down and then he called Snape into the office. When Snape was there, Lupin used some kind of an incantation on Scabbers, and then Scabbers turned out to be a man! He's an Animagus, can you believe it? He is Peter Pettigrew."

"What? But isn't that the name of the man that Sirius Black supposedly killed!" said Hermione.

"It is that man. He's not dead. Turned out that Sirius Black didn't kill him after all, and he also didn't kill all the Muggles. They let an innocent man rot in Azkaban, that's what they did! They don't think he's after you anymore, Harry. They now think he's been after Pettigrew the whole time. The way I understood this, Lupin is an old friend of your father's and of Black's as well. Pettigrew also knew Snape, called him by his first name even. Lupin promised to take us by the side once this is all over and to give us a more thorough explanation. – Oh, and Snape went to check his left forearm and Dumbledore asked him whether he had the mark. Neither Lupin nor I understood, but Snape confirmed this. Then he showed Lupin his own left forearm. They called it the Dark Mark, and it seems that all Death Eaters had it on their arms. Snape had been one, no surprise there, but Dumbledore told Lupin, that Snape had returned to the Light Side and became a spy long before You-Know-Who went down."

"What's a Death Eater?" Hermione asked.

"You-Know-Who's followers were called that."

Harry listened to all this and wasn't able to say one word. After a while he found his speech again and asked:

"So Black's after Pettigrew to finish him off or what?"

"Well, he must be wanting revenge. Pettigrew framed him after all."

"Can you imagine what it must be like to have those Dementors around you day in day out? It must be hell. I quite understand his thirst for revenge," whispered Hermione.

"Yes, must be! Well, I'm bloody glad, he isn't after me. Maybe that will make my life a bit easier here," said Harry.

"I'm sure it will."

"Maybe they'll even let you come to Hogsmeade the next time, Harry! Who knows?" said Ron.

"Yeah, who knows… I still don't have permission from my guardians though."

"True. But they kept you back because you were in danger, remember?" Ron insisted.

"Yes, that's true, too. Well, if that's it, let's go down to dinner, I'm hungry."

-

Once Ron had left, Remus said:

"I'll find him. I have an idea about where to start. I'll get him here alone."

"Shouldn't I come along?" Severus asked.

"No, I don't think that's wise. You'd only get him agitated anyway. And I have nothing to fear. Albus can show you Sirius' letter I got this morning. Albus, will you contact the ministry?"

"I will do that, but I think there's no hurry for that yet. We'll have to find a secure place to hold Peter in. His Animagus form makes it quite difficult, actually."

"Bare stone walls should not be too bad," Severus suggested, "magically sealed of course."

"Yes, I quite agree with you, Severus, and best stun him again," Remus said and turned to go for his quest.

He went straight to the secret stash hiding place. It was clear to him at once that Sirius had been hauling the box out of its earthen hiding spot. All Remus needed to do now was follow the scent. He couldn't move as fast as on four paws, but he got to where Sirius was quick enough. It took him the better part of the early evening and it was getting late now, but he knew he was close.

"Sirius! Sirius, where are you?" Remus called in intervals.

"We've got the rat and he confessed! Come on out, Siri! Please!"

Remus reached the place where Sirius hid up in the tree. He looked up and sure enough, Sirius jumped down. Remus broke out in a grin and threw his arms around Sirius.

"Oh god, Siri! How can we – how can I ever apologise for what I have done!"

"Don't, Remus, you couldn't have known and they cut me off from everything so completely there was no way I could have let you know. Up until I found that article I didn't even know for sure that Pettigrew had survived his own attack."

"Come back to the castle. We have questioned Pettigrew, first without and when he lied, with Veritaserum. Severus had some on hand."

"Severus? As in Severus Snape?" Sirius asked, most astonished.

"Yes. He's the potions master."

"But, but he's been a Death Eater!"

"Yes, I know, he showed me his mark. After I had forced Pettigrew's transformation, he went straight to him and checked his arm. Saw the mark and looked appalled. Apparently Snape didn't know Pettigrew was a Death Eater as well."

"Well possible, because Voldemort never let them reveal themselves to all, especially his spies. As far as we found out there were small groups who knew about each other, but not everyone knew who everyone else was. Good tactic to keep them from giving away their secrets."

"Anyway, then Albus told me, Snape had come back to our side almost a year before Voldemort fell. And he became the spy. It was thanks to him we even knew James and Lily were targets."

"That's why Albus never wanted to reveal that source…" Sirius said.

"I'd suppose so."

All of a sudden, Remus embraced Sirius with a fierce hug and almost cried into the crook of Sirius' neck. Sirius put his arms around his old friend.

"I love you, Sirius, I never stopped loving you! My reason told me the facts speak against you, but there was always a tiny bit of doubt. I so wanted to hear your version of it all, but they wouldn't grant me a visitor's permit to Azkaban. And I've tried to get in so many times! Thank you for telling me in your letter you still love me!"

"I had to add it, Remus. It's been hell and back and then hell again, but I never forgot you. Thanks to Padfoot I survived with my magic and most of my mind and soul intact. When it all got too much I transformed in my cell and they thought I was as mad as the others, since my emotions were like an animal's to them and they couldn't grasp them. I only allowed myself to think of you when I was in dog form. And I'm glad you never set one foot inside there."

"I don't even want to think about what you went through!"

"You probably went through equally difficult times…" Sirius remarked.

"Oh they can't have been nearly so bad! Hard to find jobs, but I made it through."

"And now you're a teacher, I hear! I'm so proud of you, love!"

Remus stopped. How he had longed to hear this endearment out of Sirius' mouth again and how he had been afraid he would lose his mate completely. He looked up into the beloved face for the first time in twelve years. He smiled weakly, but Sirius started to grin and the horrible mask of the ex-prisoner was the face of a man ten years younger instantly. Sirius closed the distance between them and their lips met for a first tentative kiss. Remus felt the same sparks he had felt back then and all the graveness of the situation was blown away. They deepened the kiss and held on to each other more tightly. For a long while they stood and kissed. Remus finally ended the kiss and said:

"Well, we'd better get back to the castle. I need at least a few hours of sleep before classes…"

"Ever the good one. You may have to cancel them tomorrow after all… we still have quite a bit of a way there."

"I know."

While they walked on, they joined their hands and talked about what was going on. Sirius asked:

"How much does Harry know about all of this?"

"I think he knows almost nothing. He does know it was Voldemort who killed James and Lily, but he knows nothing about us and the Fidelius charm. He'll have to be told as tenderly as we can, Sirius! He still believes you to be a mass murderer, though Ron might have told him a few bits of what he heard yesterday. And he doesn't know of the connection between you and James and Lily."

Sirius sighed.

"I've seen him playing Quidditch…" he said.

"Yes, he's quite the flyer, isn't he? He's been made seeker for Gryffindor in his first year, Siri."

"In his FIRST year? No one gets to play for the team that young!"

"Oh, but he did. And they never lost a match until this last one. And that's because Harry had to detect the Dementors. He has to relive Lily's death, Sirius! He hears her screaming and pleading for his life. And he gets to hear Voldemort's cruel laughing and then casually killing her. If he stands his ground even that far before fainting. He asked me to help him defend himself against the Dementors."

"The Patronus? Do you think he'll manage that?"

"I can only try to teach him. But I suppose the Dementors will be taken away immediately, they will have to pardon you! I think, I'll still teach him though."

"What do you do at the full moon, Remus? I was watching out for you to come to the shack, but never got to see you…"

"I don't need to. Remember the potion my father researched? He finished it six years ago."

"A cure?" Sirius asked hopefully.

"No, not a cure, but it helps me to keep my own mind during the transformation and holds the wolf at bay. I can transform in my own quarters."

"That's closest to a cure you can get then, eh? How does it feel?"

"Well, I'm able to stay calm enough to just roll up in front of the fire and sleep. But now that Padfoot is back, who knows, it might be fun to go out and run now and again…" Remus said with a shy smile.

"I'd love that, Moony!"

The shy smile became a genuine one.

It was a long way back to the castle and they had to walk for several hours. It gave them time to talk things through, to set things right and to rebuild their bond. When they got to the edge of the forest, Remus said:

"Change, Sirius. You don't want to be seen by just anyone yet."

"You're right."

A moment later, Remus guided the big black dog through the castle. He took him to his chambers. As soon as the door closed behind them, Remus magically closed the curtains of his living room windows and said:

"Come back, love!"

Remus ignited the candles. He looked at the clock on the wall, which said half past five in the morning, groaned, and told Sirius:

"I'm going to tell Albus that I found you. You sit down and I'll get you some food from the kitchen first, you must be starved! The house-elves are still as discreet as ever."

"Thank you!"

Remus went to get some fresh clothes on, then called up a house-elf and told him to bring up a rich breakfast for his guest. Then he went to talk to Albus. He had to wake him up, but Albus came down to meet Sirius right away. They entered Remus' quarters only twenty minutes later. Sirius sat on the sofa enjoying his first warm and good meal in twelve years. When he noticed Albus and Remus enter, he put the tray on the coffee table and stood up.

"Albus…"

"Sirius! I'm so glad, Remus found you! Thank you for your letter! There is no way I can even express how sorry I am and how bad I feel. If I had only the slightest information about the switch I would have fought for you. As it was, all I knew was that you were their secret keeper. And it does sadden me to no end, that this was the main statement that put you into prison," Albus said.

He took Sirius' hands, and told him to sit down again and finish his meal. He noticed the school robes and smiled. Sirius and Remus noticed his glance and Remus explained:

"When we left school we buried our first wands and some other things in a box near the Shrieking Shack. There were school robes from each of us in that box."

"Ah, I see. So you do have a wand, Sirius?"

"Yes," Sirius confirmed.

"Good. Does it still work satisfactorily?"

"Yes, it does. As well as it did back then. I bonded with it again immediately."

"Good. I have sent an owl to Fudge. He's an old dunderhead, but he will be here in the early morning, first thing, I'm sure, and I'll make him see the protocol of our questioning Pettigrew first, then I'll take him to see Pettigrew and question him as well, before I tell him that we actually have you here. You're not taking one step out of this flat until we call you up, is that clear?"

"Absolutely, Albus. I have a life to lose…"

"Very well. I suggest we all get some sleep. I'll have Minerva tell your students that your classes today are cancelled, Remus."

"Thank you, Albus."

Dumbledore left them alone. Sirius finished his meal and beamed.

"I had totally forgotten how warm food tasted! I'm still a bit hungry, but I guess I can always get something later on. May I use your bathroom, Remus?"

"No need to ask. We'll need to give your hair a trim."

"I've been able to shave magically, but I couldn't do the hair. I'll probably just have to cut it all completely… it must be ruined."

"Well, let me just cut off the worst, down here, and then we'll see, Sirius. Go and bathe first!"

Remus showed Sirius the bath. He wanted to leave him his privacy, but Sirius looked back at him and asked:

"Stay with me?"

"If you want that…"

"Yes, I do!"

"Okay, just let me collect a pair of scissors…"

Remus accioed the scissors and then he watched Sirius undress. Sirius lifted the robes over his head and Remus was shocked when he saw Sirius had not worn anything underneath apart from his boots.

"Sirius! How did you manage not to freeze to death out there in the forest?"

"Padfoot," Sirius replied with a shrug, "and warming charms."

"Oh. My. God. – Love, this is awful, I'll get you some underwear and a pair of trousers and some sweaters immediately. Once I slept out I'll be off to Hogsmeade!"

"It's okay, Remus, stop worrying, I'm inside here now, and I've never had it so warm for twelve years!"

Sirius climbed into the bath and Remus sat down on the edge. He waited until Sirius had soaked his hair in the warm water, then he picked up the scissors.

"Well, I'll just make it a clean straight cut underneath your shoulder blades, then we'll see if we can untangle the mess, okay?" Remus suggested.

"Fine with me."

Remus took the scissors and started to cut through to the other side. He collected the hair he cut off and dropped it into the wastebasket. Once he got through, he picked up the shampoo and said:

"I'll wash it for you…"

"Thanks, love!"

"I'm glad I can do it, love."

He had to wash and rinse four times, before he had the feeling it was really clean. He took out a comb and started to untangle the hair, working through strand for strand. He had to pick up his wand to undo some of the knots, but finally he got through it.

"Well, it's not that bad, I think, if I cut off maybe another inch to even it out, then it should be fine, Siri."

"Okay, go ahead."

This time Remus was able to use his wand to get an even cut. He smiled. He'd have this wonderful mane to bury his hands inside again. Sirius picked up a washcloth and some soap and cleaned himself from all the dirt that a soak in the cold stream had not been able to remove.

A knock on the door startled them both. Remus left the bathroom and closed the door. He went to answer his caller who turned out to be Poppy Pomfrey.

"Good morning, Remus. Albus told me everything. He asked me to check Sirius up. Is he here?" she asked cheerfully.

"Good morning, Poppy. Yes, he's taking a bath. Won't you sit down, he'll surely be out of there soon, he has just finished bathing."

"Okay."

Remus returned to the bathroom and closed the door.

"Who was it? A student?"

"No, they don't get here. It's Poppy. Albus told her about you and she wants to check you through."

"Oh."

Sirius got up and rinsed himself from all the soap and remaining dirt. Remus had brought him a soft towel to wrap around himself. He offered him a bathrobe. Then Sirius drained the tub. He looked down and saw what was left behind.

"Ewww…"

Remus laughed and said, shrugging his shoulder:

"House-elves are quite adept in taking care of something like this. They do have their good sides, don't they?"

Sirius grinned. Remus dried his hair with a spell, while he towelled himself dry. He got dressed in the offered bathrobe. Then they left the bathroom. Poppy jumped up and gave Sirius a once over from far.

"Hello, Poppy," Sirius said lightly.

"It's good to see you again, Sirius! I'm so glad you're not the one!" she replied.

"Thank you."

"Well, take off that robe, Sirius, I want to check you up."

Sirius sighed, but accepted and took the robe off again. Poppy gasped. Every single rib was clearly showing through the pale skin and the same went for most other bones in his body. He seemed to be only skin over bones anymore. His whole body was covered with scars. She breathed in hard and said:

"Well, we'll have some work to do. You'll have to take this tonic in addition to extra solid meals five times a day. And you'll have to train so your muscles will build up again. How much were you able to move at all during your time in Azkaban?"

"Practically zero. I could move a bit in my dog form, but not much more than as a human."

"In your dog form? What do you mean, in your dog form?"

"I thought, Remus said that Albus had told you about me?"

"Only that he has proof you're innocent."

"Oh. I would say that this calls for an explanation then."

Sirius and Remus told her about the three Animagi. She gasped and then looked at Sirius and said:

"Well, I always knew you were a very talented boy, Sirius! May I see your dog form?"

Sirius transformed. She stared at him and then smiled. Then she gave him a little scratch behind the ears.

"You're a beautiful dog, Sirius!"

He transformed back. Then he told her:

"That's what helped me survive Azkaban."

"Oh, I'm so glad you did! It must have been hell!"

"It was, Poppy, but I'm out now, and it looks like I'm not going back in there. I think before they'd be able to get me in there again I'd kill myself."

She grabbed his hands and turned them to look again at the inside of his wrists. The many scars visible there told her more than enough.

"You've tried to do that already, haven't you?"

"Yes, I did. During the first few years anyway. They always found me in time and healed me. I think they smell it. And then they observed me even more strictly."

"Oh Merlin! That's so painful to hear!"

For a moment they were silent, then Poppy looked up and saw his teeth.

"Let me do something about those teeth of yours, Sirius. You'll have a lovely smile again once I'm done."

She lifted her wand, pointed it at his teeth and said a few incantations. Remus watched how the teeth turned white again and then Sirius went over them with his tongue and smiled.

"If it looks as good as it feels, then you've done an outstanding job, Poppy."

"It does, Sirius! Except for the thin frame and your long hair you're not to recognise anymore!" Remus said, sounding pleased.

"Well, that's all I can do right now, Sirius. Your health seems to be stable, all we really have to do is see that you are getting some flesh onto your bones. You should go to sleep now, you must have been up all night."

"We were, in fact," Remus confirmed.

Poppy took her leave and Remus led Sirius to the bedroom. In the cosy room, a huge four poster stood in the middle of the wall to the bathroom. Remus undressed and both crawled under the blankets. Sirius turned to face Remus and warned him:

"I might have to transform to be able to sleep, Remus. I've had nightmares I couldn't stand anymore when I tried to sleep in my human form…"

Remus nodded.

"I'm warned then. But let me hold you and try at least, okay?"

"Yes."

Remus closed up to Sirius and pulled him into his arms. Then he kissed him on the forehead and said:

"Sleep well, my love!"

"Good night, Remus."

The morning dawned, but they fell asleep quickly. Not long afterwards Sirius started to dream, but Remus held on tightly and the dreams were painful, but didn't get through to his consciousness. He slept through them and when they woke up several hours later, Sirius had had the first good undisturbed sleep for a long time. He woke up before Remus, but he noticed that he was still in his lover's arms. No one had disturbed them until now. Sirius turned on his back and looked around, taking in the details of the room. He smiled when he looked at Remus, who was still asleep.

'He always looks so sweet, when he's asleep, even now, with the greying hair and those lines. What did you have to go through, my love? I know, you won't tell me. You always say what's in the past is in the past and that we should let it be,' Sirius thought.

He contemplated waking Remus with a kiss, then glanced at the clock on the wall, which said close to noon. His stomach growled. He had learned to disregard that in the past few months on the run when food was very scarce. He wriggled out of Remus' arms and sat up, pulling up his knees and resting his chin on them. He looked down on Remus. Remus turned onto his back in his sleep, and then woke up with a start. He saw Sirius sitting next to him and relaxed. He reached up to stroke Sirius over the back, then said:

"Good morning, Siri!"

"Good morning, Moony!"

"How I longed to hear you call me that again! I've missed you so much, Padfoot."

"I've missed you, too, Moony. Now it's only us two left over, eh?"

"Looks like it. It's still unfamiliar to think Peter was the one. Snape was almost happy, when I questioned him, because I took him apart with my questions."

"Well done, then. If I don't have to, I don't even want to see him anymore. I think I couldn't hold back from killing him. With my bare hands if I must."

"Well, I'm sure they'll question you both. Albus will suggest that they question you without and after that with Veritaserum, if your answers cover, then they only need to question Pettigrew. If your wand can be found, it can be checked over with Prior Incantatem. Should also tell them a lot. Peter didn't have a wand anymore, it must have been lost in the explosion."

"Didn't they snap my wand?"

"I don't know."

"Did you keep my Gringotts key?"

"Yes, I did. As I kept everything out of the flat."

"Good. I hope you made use of the vault!"

Remus didn't reply. He hadn't touched Sirius' vault in the years since his imprisonment. It felt wrong and once he had been convinced Sirius to be guilty he didn't want any of the money.

"The key's at Sheridan Place, I'll have to ask Papa to find it, if you want it."

"No hurry. – You didn't answer my question."

"And I won't. It's in the past."

'As I thought you wouldn't,' Sirius thought.

Sirius turned around, so he faced Remus. He started to caress him slowly. Remus caught his hand and kissed it tenderly.

"Is there something on your mind, Padfoot?"

"You know there is, Moony! Is it on yours, too?"

"I think so…"

Remus sat up and wrapped his arms around Sirius. He felt Sirius' arms close around his shoulders, too, then they met for a kiss. The kiss soon led to more caressing, which soon led to Sirius rolling on top of Remus. They kissed hungrily and their hands flew over their bodies. Sirius was almost startled when he felt his cock stiffen. It hadn't happened since the second day in Azkaban, when the thought of Remus had been too overwhelming. Remus felt it, too, and it pleased him to no end. He smiled into the kiss and pulled his hand from Sirius' back to curl around his cock. Two, three strokes over it and Sirius came. Sirius was totally shocked by his sudden and quick response.

"I'm so sorry, Remus…"

"That's okay, Sirius, I suppose you didn't exactly get sexually trained in that hellhole. It's quite normal actually, after such a long abstinence."

"But that fast… on the other hand, I was astonished that I even got it up."

"Sirius, you're only 33, you're going to get this right again soon. All you need is some training!"

"You're right, I suppose. But it's frustrating!"

"I believe you."

-

Another knock on their door fetched them from the bed. Remus pulled his bathrobe on and went to answer the knock. Dumbledore was outside and said:

"We'll be ready to have Sirius questioned in my office at two o'clock, Remus. Did you get some sleep?"

"Thank you, Albus, we did. Poppy came by, too, and checked Sirius up."

"Good. Then get some lunch and come to my office. Fudge is here as is Ashley Grover, the head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement who has taken over the investigation. They were both quite convinced already that Sirius must be pardoned, but they do need Sirius' own statements."

"That lets me hope for a good ending, Albus. Thank you!"

Sirius and Remus went up to Albus' office shortly before two. Sirius had once again transformed until they were safely inside of Albus' office. Albus was still alone and beckoned them in.

"I trust, you told Sirius already about the opinions of Fudge and Grover, Remus?"

"Yes, of course."

"I'll have to say that it's mainly Ashley who's convinced, but he's the judge, not Fudge. Fudge actually made an impression of complete shock and disbelief."

"That would be because it was Fudge who arrested me, Albus. He didn't exactly treat me by the law, either."

"What do you mean by that?"

"Well, he did try to use the Imperius curse on me and before the rest of the Aurors turned up after him, he did put me under Cruciatus."

"He did WHAT? I thought they were only allowed to use Avada Kedavra in case of absolute need!" Remus exclaimed.

"Have Grover ask me about my arrest under the truth serum then."

"I will, Sirius, I will," Albus promised.

Then they heard other people coming up the staircase. Fudge was in front, looking almost sick, he was closely followed by Grover and Snape came last, bringing the truth serum. They greeted Remus and Sirius shortly and everyone took their seats. Grover set up a roll of parchment and enchanted a self-loading quill to record the conversation. Then he proceeded to question Sirius, first without the Veritaserum.

"Mr Black, I'm going to ask you a few short questions. I'm already quite convinced you are not at fault, as I have questioned Peter Pettigrew intensively this morning and I have found enough evidence in his replies that he had been the Potter's secret keeper and he had killed the twelve Muggles. So please tell me your version."

Sirius related his version of the evening of the 31st October 1981, then proceeded right to the next day and the show down between himself and Peter. Grover nodded several times and then declared:

"That covers Pettigrew's version almost literally. I don't think I'll even need to question you under Veritaserum. You will receive your documents of acquittal within two days, Mr Black. I would like to recommend you should press charges for compensation from the ministry. Is there anything you would like to add?"

"I think, Mr Black would like to be questioned under Veritaserum, as a matter of fact, Ashley, and he would like you to ask him about his arrest," Dumbledore said softly.

Fudge paled.

"Does this really call for Veritaserum, Albus? Were there any illegitimate actions during your arrest, Mr Black? I know there wasn't a trial, which in itself is illegitimate, and we'll have an investigation, if you wish."

"How illegitimate would you describe the use of Imperius and Cruciatus, Mr Grover?" Sirius asked quietly, looking down on his hands folded in his lap.

"Most illegitimate. I know that Aurors were allowed to kill a suspect if there was no other way, and in an extreme case, they were permitted to use Imperius to bring in a suspect, but they were not under any circumstances allowed to use Cruciatus. Do you want to tell me, that both curses had been used on you?"

"As a matter of fact, yes. The person in question was not even an Auror and he used Imperius first and since I can throw that off he put me under Cruciatus until the other Aurors arrived. After that I was not allowed to speak up for myself. I was, in fact, not even questioned. After I regained consciousness I woke up in my cell in Azkaban."

Grover gasped. Even though Sirius did not mention a name, Grover knew from a look inside the scarce documents in Sirius' files, that Fudge had been the first on the spot. He turned around and looked at Fudge. Fudge's face was deathly pale. Everyone in the room, including Snape, now looked at him. They all knew.

"I am sorry, Cornelius, but I will have to put you under arrest," said Grover.

"I am the Minister of Magic, you can't just arrest me!" Fudge screeched in protest.

"You know what the use of an Unforgivable Curse means, Cornelius. I'm sorry, but in this case you cannot claim political immunity. And you know as well that Unforgivable curses are not under limitation."

"Do you tell me, you believe what a deranged criminal says without even so much as asking me if that was correct?"

"Cornelius, he did not even mention your name, but we all know you were the first on site. And if I give him Veritaserum now and ASK him for the name, he will. He offered. Do you want that? And by now we have established that he is no criminal."

Dumbledore gave Snape the quiet order to stand by the door. He prepared the dose of Veritaserum for Sirius and handed the goblet to him. Sirius looked at Fudge, then at Grover and swallowed the contents immediately. While they were waiting, Grover stood up and floo called two Aurors into the office.

Then he asked Sirius:

"Who arrested you, Mr Black?"

"At first, Cornelius Fudge. Shortly after his arrival there were several other Aurors, I remember Justine McGonagall, my sister Polaris, Frank Longbottom, Charles Haversham, and some others whose names should be in the files at the ministry."

"When were you put under the Unforgivable Curses?"

"Right before the Auror squad arrived. I suppose they were used to hold me down until they arrived."

"Who was the first to arrive there?"

"Cornelius Fudge. He was from the Department of Magical Catastrophes."

"He was not an Auror?"

"Not to my knowledge."

"Who put you under the Unforgivable Curses?"

"Cornelius Fudge."

"Mr Black, you have been an Auror before you were arrested, is that correct?"

"Yes."

"Was anyone besides Aurors authorised to use Imperius or Avada Kedavra?"

"No. Not even all Aurors were authorised."

"Very good. Your statement will be used in the investigation. We'll have to bring light into your arrest. It could well be that you weren't allowed to speak up for your own defence, because of Fudge's use of the Unforgivables. He probably wanted to cover this up."

The two Aurors arrived through the Floo. Grover asked them:

"You will have to arrest Mr Cornelius Fudge."

"This is a rebellion, Dumbledore!" Fudge roared.

He had turned very red in the face, but the Aurors were used to follow orders. They moved closer to Fudge who now drew his wand. But Remus, who had been standing close to Fudge, just reached out from behind and plucked it from his hand. He passed it to the Aurors immediately.

"Sorry, Minister," Remus said, not looking sorry at all.

Fudge had to follow the Aurors. They went back to the Ministry by floo. Grover remained behind for a moment.

"Mr Black, I know it is only a shallow apology. I wish I could change the decisions and the very sloppy investigation of that early November 1981, but I can't. All I can offer is a public statement, which will be coming through the WWN several times today and tomorrow and of course will also be published in the Daily Prophet. You will receive your papers in the next two days."

"Thank you, Mr Grover. May I ask you to check into the matter of my guardianship of Harry Potter? We will have to talk to the boy tonight and if he decides to accept me as his guardian I would like to contact you for the papers to be written as soon as possible."

"I will go through the papers that were found in the wreckage. Did you know about the Potter's wills?"

"Yes, as a matter of fact I was with them when they wrote and sealed them. I know I was named as one of the guardians and that Mr Remus Lupin was named as the second guardian," Sirius said.

"I haven't seen the documents myself, but I know they were preserved. They will be found and we'll see into the matter. In the meantime I suggest you inform Harry about the situation."

"Thank you, sir. As for the compensation – who would I have to contact?"

"Myself. I would like to see you at my office next week sometime, so we can go over everything. The Ministry can't be stingy on that issue. Twelve years in Azkaban is hardly ever to compensate. It's a miracle you survived and seem well."

"I still don't really know how I did it, but my Animagus form certainly helped. Could I ask another favour? Could you wait with public statements until the day after tomorrow, so I have time to speak to Harry and he'll have time to think over everything?"

"Yes, of course, I haven't thought of that; he shouldn't read it in the paper or hear it on the wireless. So the day after tomorrow, that would be Sunday, will be okay?"

"I think so."

"Good. Shall I send you an owl for an appointment next week?"

"Yes, please. Thank you, Mr Grover."

"I'm glad I was able to set this straight. I'll bid goodbye then. Albus, so good to see you again. I'll have to go back to the Ministry and see to it that we will get an interim minister as soon as possible."

The two shook hands, then Grover said goodbye to Remus and Sirius and the two of them quietly embraced as soon as Grover had left the office.

"It's over, Moony! I can't believe it, I thought this nightmare would never end!" Sirius whispered.

"Yes, love, it's over. I'll never let anyone hurt you again!"

There was a sharp knock on the door and when Albus opened it, Minerva McGonagall came in and asked:

"Albus, there's a rumour that Sirius Black is in the castle – surely that can't be, can it?"

"Minerva, where have you been all day? Not only is Sirius really here – all you have to do is turn around to see him – so were Peter Pettigrew, Cornelius Fudge and Ashley Grover."

Minerva didn't know what to do first, to cry out that Peter Pettigrew was dead or to turn around and see Sirius Black. She decided to do both at the same time:

"But Pettigrew is dead, Al…. – SIRIUS BLACK! What the heck is going on here?"

"No, unfortunately Pettigrew is still alive, Sirius didn't kill him. He didn't kill the Muggles, either. Sirius wasn't even the Potter's secret keeper, Minerva, Pettigrew was. And we were able to see this morning, that Pettigrew was the spy. He has the Dark Mark!"

Minerva looked back and forth and finally took in the fact, that Sirius was in Remus' arms. She turned to them, looked at Sirius and her frown changed to one of her rare smiles.

"It may sound cruel to Pettigrew, but Sirius, I'm certainly glad, he turned out to be the villain after all and not you! Welcome back!"

"Hello, Professor!" Sirius said.

"Does this mean you're officially pardoned?" Minerva asked.

"Yes, I am. I'll get my papers in a few days," Sirius replied.

"I suggest, you and Remus go and gather Harry and take him to your flat to explain everything to him, Sirius! Tonight I shall expect you to come to dinner at the Great Hall and I'll announce it to the rest of the school, so you don't need to walk around in dog form anymore," said Albus.

"Dog form?" Minerva asked.

"Dog form. Sirius is an Animagus. Has been since fifth year in fact. Would you believe it?" Albus asked.

Now she stood in front of Sirius and put up her stern face again.

"Sirius Black! Are you aware of everything that could have gone wrong? What made you do something so foolish? Just one thought of what your parents would have done to us if it HAD gone wrong! If this weren't so many years ago I'd have to still deduct points from Gryffindor…"

Sirius took the tirade with grace and the most angelic smile he was able to put on his face. He knew she would be unable to resist that and he was right.

"Professor, James, Peter and I were all Animagi. James transformed into a stag, Peter into a rat and I into a big black dog. We did it so we could help Remus during full moon nights."

"What? You mean you stayed with Remus at the shack?"

"We did. Being animals he could bite us all he wanted, it did not turn us into werewolves. So we could play and prevent him from hurting himself."

"Oh, this is so sweet! I always knew you were brilliant, Sirius, but you've also got a big heart, which is just so nice! Now let me see that dog of yours, before you go!"

"Here you are!"

Sirius transformed and Minerva looked at him in awe. Remus smiled. He scratched Padfoot behind his ears and said:

"Meet Padfoot, Minerva."

"Oh, THAT's where this ridiculous nickname came from."

"Yes, that's where it's from – James was Prongs and Peter was Wormtail."

"Makes everything understandable then. Now go on! Harry is in Herbology. You have my permission to get him from there and he can skip his last class."


	3. Meeting Harry

**3. Meeting Harry**

Remus and Padfoot left the office and went through the school and out to the greenhouses. When they found the one where the third years were, Remus opened the door. Sirius slipped in ahead, Remus followed and Professor Sprout looked around.

"Hello, Edith."

"Hello, Remus. Did you pick up a dog? He's huge!" Professor Sprout said and held her hand in front of the dog's nose to get it sniffed. Sirius licked it.

"That's Padfoot. He'll be around for a bit. – I have Minerva's permission to kidnap Harry Potter, if you don't mind, Edith. I need to have a lengthy conversation with him."

"Oh, sure – Potter! Could you leave everything to your friends and come over?"

Harry, like all others, had been looking at the huge dog. He knew that this was the dog he'd seen in Magnolia Crescent and in the Quidditch stands. It had the same strange pale eyes. He told Ron and Hermione immediately:

"Remember that I told you I'd seen that huge black dog?"

"Yes, the Grim – and?" said Ron.

"Can you see that dog over there?"

They looked and of course they saw it.

"That was it! I'm quite sure about it."

"But how does it get here and why has Lupin got it?" Ron asked.

"No idea."

Then he was called over by Professor Sprout.

"Professor Lupin would like to talk to you about something, Potter. You're dismissed!"

"Okay. I'll just get my stuff then…"

He rejoined his professor. Sirius pressed himself against Remus' leg.

"Is that your dog, Professor Lupin?" Harry asked.

"Kind of. This is Padfoot, Harry. He's big, but he's a sweetheart…"

"Like Fang then, eh?"

"Even more so, believe me. You're excused for the rest of the afternoon, Harry, would you mind coming to my flat for a cup of tea? There is quite a lot I have to tell you."

"Okay. – What is it about?" Harry asked.

"About what happened yesterday and this morning. Though you don't know anything of this morning yet."

They walked back to the castle and Remus took Harry to his chambers. He sat him down on the sofa and got up to call for a house-elf and some tea and biscuits. Not ten minutes later a fairly large tea and all sorts of foods were placed in front of them on the coffee table. Harry quickly noticed, that there were three cups.

"Your looks told me you recognised the dog here, Harry," Remus remarked.

"I think I did. I saw a dog just like this one. Scared me a bit, as it was in the middle of the night."

"Well, it was this one. We'll get to that in a minute. What has Ron told you yesterday?"

"That he found out his rat was actually Peter Pettigrew and that Pettigrew had been my parents' secret keeper. What is a secret keeper, Professor? Oh yes, and that you deducted from all of that, that Sirius Black is innocent."

"Okay, let's start with the secret keeper. Your parents knew that Voldemort was after them. We were all going through very difficult times then, Harry, and so it was decided, that an old charm would be used to hide them, called the Fidelius charm. It asks for someone who is ready to act as the secret keeper. The knowledge about where you and your parents lived was buried in one soul, and that meant that Voldemort could have stared into your living room, he wouldn't have seen you. Sirius Black was your parents' and my best friend, along with Peter Pettigrew. He was meant to be their secret keeper, but he decided at the last moment, that he was too obvious, it would be too easy to get to him. So he and Peter switched. They never told me, because for a moment they thought I might have been the spy who passed information about all of us to Voldemort. You see, Peter was a rather weak wizard, no one would have thought of him to be the secret keeper or a spy. So they switched and only a week later your parents were murdered."

"Because he gave the secret away?" Harry asked.

"Yes. Sirius of course knew it was Peter who must have given it away. Anyone of us could have gone to Voldemort and tell him, we all knew where you were of course, only he wouldn't have been the wiser, because only if he got the information from the secret keeper was it of any use for him."

"And what happened then?" Harry asked.

"Then Sirius tracked Peter down and wanted to kill him for this. He had just lost his best friends. He and James had grown up together, they were best friends practically from the cradle. But Peter was prepared. He blew up the street, cut off a finger and transformed into his Animagus form of a rat. And Sirius was blamed for the crime and sent off to Azkaban. He didn't even have a trial, he wasn't even allowed to speak up for himself. He just woke up in his cell."

"That must have been awful. I remember when we overheard that Hagrid was sent there last year. He came back after two months, but he wouldn't even talk about it!"

"Yes, he's gone through hell."

"And you've been a friend of my dad's, too?"

Remus smiled.

"Yes, Harry. James, Sirius, Peter and I shared the dorm here at Hogwarts."

"What house were you in?"

"Gryffindor. In James' case it was clear before he even put up the Sorting Hat. Sirius and I had both Gryffindor/Ravenclaw heritage. Both our fathers had been in Gryffindor, both our mothers in Ravenclaw. Peter was a surprise, and to this day I don't know if the hat didn't make a mistake in his case. His parents had both been Hufflepuffs. When I went up with Ron to your dormitory I was in our old dorm for the first time since school. I had the same bed you have now, in fact."

"Oh. – And which was my dad's?"

"Two beds to the left of yours. Sirius was next to me."

"That would be where Seamus sleeps. It's good to know that, Professor."

"Gives a familiar feeling, doesn't it? Well, there is more, Harry. More about Sirius."

"How was he? He can't have been that bad if he was a friend of my Dad's. The way everyone speaks of my dad he must have been a saint!"

Now Remus broke out laughing. He laughed so hard, tears came into his eyes and when he noticed Harry staring at him, he tried to contain his laughter and regain his composure. Harry noticed, that even the dog seemed to be grinning.

"Well, Harry, I don't know who you talked to, but if you ask Professor McGonagall or Mr Filch you might be surprised about what you hear. Your dad and Sirius were about the worst pranksters this school has ever seen. Nothing that the Weasley twins can bring up hasn't already been done by those two. Mr Filch had a whole drawer full of things about your father and Sirius alone."

Upon this, Sirius transformed and exclaimed:

"Would you mind, Moony! You were one of us, and only because you were the most devious one you didn't get that many detentions. Harry, be careful of this one, he's probably pulled more successful pranks than any other student in this school ever!"

Then he noticed what he'd done and said:

"Ooops…"

Harry stared at him in shock. He saw that the Sirius Black he knew from that photo wasn't the same man anymore, he already looked a lot better than that, but the sudden appearance – while the dog disappeared – shocked him quite a bit. He screamed.

"I'm sorry, I didn't want to give you a fright, Harry…" Sirius said quickly.

"…but that's Sirius for you, Harry. Impulsive and never thinking very far. What do you want, he's a dog after all…"

"A dog?" Harry sputtered.

"Yes. That's what I was just getting at. Your dad and Sirius were very close friends. They did everything together and when you were born, they made him your godfather. He was the obvious choice for that position. And they also made him your guardian, in case anything should happen to them."

"Actually, Harry, your mum would have preferred to have Remus as your godfather, because she always thought, he was the only one among us who possessed a thing called reason. Of course she was absolutely right about that, but there was something that didn't allow it. Still they had both of us named as your guardians in their will," said Sirius.

"Oh. – And why would it not have been allowed?"

Remus sighed. He knew that he would have to tell Harry, but it seemed such a hard thing to do. He took a deep breath, but Sirius looked at him and said:

"Should I?"

Remus nodded.

"Harry, when we came here for our first year and after we were sorted into the same house, the four of us became close friends after a while. Peter wouldn't have been a natural choice for a friend, but he had no one else in the year, so we took him in and he turned out to be a very good friend – for a long time. During our first year we noticed Remus was absent. He was often absent. He gave us strange excuses, everything from his mum was ill to the death of some relative. We started to see a pattern after a while. Especially when we had plans that fell on a full moon night. He would give us excuses for that, too, and then we started to observe him. And found out he had a terrible secret. He was very afraid we'd figure it out and we did. You see, when he was a very little boy, he was bitten by a werewolf. And so he became one, too, of course. None of us had been told, they tried to keep it a secret, but James and I figured it out and then we confronted him with it. He was terrified. But he was a good friend and we loved him like a brother. So we told him we'd keep the secret with him. We also wanted to help him, but there's no cure for werewolves. We found out, that he wasn't dangerous to other animals though, so the next step in our search for ideas was how to become an animal. And found the Animagus transformation. We started to work on it, researched and spent many a night in the library, well hidden under your father's invisibility cloak. We managed it in our fifth year. Peter transformed last, and he became the smallest animal, a rat. I was the first to get through and you've seen my dog form just now. And your dad did it just shortly after me and he transformed into a wonderful stag. We were able to join Remus on the full moon nights and help him. Before he'd been biting and scratching himself and he often looked like someone had almost finished him off after full moon nights. Afterwards there were barely a few minor scratches to see."

"You did that for him? Wow, then you were really good friends."

"We were. The best, believe me. Up until that night your parents were killed. We had noticed that someone had passed information about all of us for about a year before that fateful night. It had to be one of us four. Since James was targeted, it couldn't have been him. I knew it wasn't me. Peter seemed too weak a wizard to even be considered, so for a while we suspected Remus. Of course after having switched with Peter I knew then who the traitor among us was. Worst of all was that I had suspected Remus! I'm still deeply ashamed of myself for that."

"Because he was a werewolf? I've heard that Voldemort had pulled the werewolves on his side…"

"Yes, but not Remus! Now I know that Peter deliberately worked to get us separated, and he almost succeeded. Well, he did succeed, taken the results of that awful night, but not wholly. We're together again and we're friends again."

"Mr Black, I can see that you are innocent, but what of the Ministry? I mean, there's all these Dementors out there, and…"

"Call me Sirius, Harry, please! I have been cleared this morning. Cornelius Fudge and Ashley Grover – do you know them?"

"Only Fudge."

"Well, Grover is the head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. He was the judge, if you so want, it wasn't a real trial. They had questioned Pettigrew and then me and that was that. They are pulling off the Dementors as we speak."

"Oh, good!"

"Harry, I have also decided to claim my guardianship over you, if you would want that. I don't know, I suppose you'd rather stay with your aunt and uncle, since they're your relatives, but…"

"… you mean, come stay and live with you?"

"Yes. As soon as I've settled back in, that is…"

"Leave the Dursleys? Oh, I can't believe it, you really mean that?"

"Yes, I do. – You… you want to?"

"Of course! I wouldn't stay a day longer there! They're the worst people you can imagine!"

Sirius sighed with relief and a smile spread over his face. Harry decided, that this smile made him a completely different person.

"Actually I do know them. Petunia and Vernon that is…"

"They have a son, he's just a few weeks older than me and he's awful! They've been mean to me all my life. Call me a freak."

"Well, then I'll definitely claim my guardianship. I don't want you to suffer there one more Christmas or summer break."

"Oh, I'm staying here all the time over Christmas. Much nicer. Ron's been with me twice, too. Ron Weasley is my best friend. And so's Hermione Granger. She's the cleverest in our year, too."

"You'll have to introduce us tonight. I'll come up to Gryffindor tower and visit you there, okay?"

"That would be great."

Sirius and Remus looked at each other. The news that Harry had a godfather and that it was Sirius had gone over well, they thought. And they were pleased about that. Now all that remained was to explain to Harry that they would be a family. Remus shook his head slightly.

"Not today, Sirius, let's give him time," he said in a very low voice.

But Harry returned to the subject by himself.

"So you couldn't be my godfather because you're a werewolf, Professor Lupin?" he asked.

"Unfortunately. I still did consider myself to be one of your godfathers, and so did your parents."

"And they put his name as one of the guardians into their wills, Harry, so we'll both be your guardians, I'll see to that. Remus and I will probably be living together again, so you'll have a family now!"

"Oh, this is neat, I like you, Professor!"

"Thank you, Harry, I've always been very fond of you as well."

"You liked him so much, that the first thing you ever clearly said, was Moony. That's Remus' nickname, you know," said Sirius with a grin.

"And I'd like you to call me Remus or Moony outside of class, Harry…"

Harry grinned. And then sighed happily. The two best friends of his parents were now his guardians, this was almost too good to be true. They spent the time until dinner together, and then Remus and Sirius accompanied Harry into the Great Hall. Sirius had transformed again and walked between Remus and Harry. When Remus sat down he noticed there was a place left open at the table for Sirius. But Sirius waited until Albus had come down to make his announcement. Once everyone seemed to be around, Albus called for their attention and then said:

"I am pleased to announce that we have a guest at the castle. He's been incarcerated in Azkaban for twelve years for a crime he did not commit. Today the head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement has granted pardon to Sirius Black, as we had proof of the fact that he did not kill Peter Pettigrew and twelve Muggles in 1981. Please welcome him back among us! – Sirius, if you'd resume your human form, please…"

Sirius transformed, stood up and then sat down next to Remus. There was a bit of applause, shy first, then a bit more enthusiastic.

"If you meet Sirius in the corridors please pay him your respect. Thank you."

Albus sat down and they enjoyed a nice meal. Sirius found a small goblet with Poppy's tonic next to his plate. He smiled at her and emptied it. Then he ate with a healthy appetite and had second and third helpings. Remus watched him and encouraged him to eat.

"Just eat! You need it."

"I know. And it's all so delicious. After having barely survived for twelve years, almost anything warm is."

"Five meals per day, Poppy said. Just go out and train your body, so you will grow back toned and not fat," Remus grinned.

At the Gryffindor table Harry told his friends what had happened in the afternoon. He looked over at the teacher's table and saw Sirius smile at him. Then he noticed that Snape glanced at Sirius with even more hatred in his eyes than he had for Remus.

"There must be something between those two, look at Snape, he looks at Sirius with even more loathing than he looked at Lupin," Harry suspected.

"Looks like it. You'll have to ask him," Ron said.

"But your godfather seems to be fairly close with Lupin," Fred remarked.

"Yes, they were like best friends throughout school," Harry explained.

"Doesn't exactly explain the hand on the other's knee," George said and grinned.

"What?"

"Well – look! Probably he doesn't notice we can see it from here…"

"Oh. Do you think they are – er… together like love together?" Harry asked.

"Why not? Could be, couldn't it?" said Fred.

"It could… Sirius said he'd probably be living with Remus again. So that means they've lived together before, doesn't it? He said I'd be getting a family."

"Remus?"

"Professor Lupin. He was supposed to be my other godfather. And he'll be my second guardian."

"Well, you got rid of those awful Muggles, Harry! Reason to celebrate."

"Definitely. Oh, Sirius will come up to the common room after dinner. He's been in Gryffindor himself when he went to school here. And according to Remus he was a worse prankster than Fred and George!"

The group around them laughed. Katie asked:

"Is that even possible?"

"Seems so. Remus said, Filch had one whole drawer in his filing cabinet on my dad and Sirius alone. Sirius then said, that Remus was worse than the two of them taken together, but that he had been too clever to have been caught."

They laughed again. The twins started to understand why Remus had fixed that agreement with them.

"Oh, but he's devious! He took us out and said, if we didn't disrupt his classes he'd not look after us too well outside of his classroom…" George told them.

"That would be why…"

"As if we would. He is a great teacher."

When Harry, Hermione and Ron got up from their table, Sirius and Remus followed them and called:

"Wait for us?"

They joined them and Harry introduced Hermione and Ron.

"Sirius, that's Hermione Granger and this is Ron Weasley. We're best friends. – Well, that's Sirius Black."

Hermione held out her hand and shook Sirius'.

"Pleased to meet you, Mr Black."

"Likewise, Miss Granger, but please call me Sirius."

"Okay, Sirius."

"You, too, Ron. – And I'm aware that you just lost your pet. May I give you a replacement? For Christmas maybe?"

"Thank you, Sirius. – But not another rat, please, I think I've had enough of them for a lifetime."

"I can imagine. How about an owl?"

"Oh, that would be too neat! I've always wanted one."

"An owl it will be then! After all it's kind of my fault you're out of your familiar now."

When they reached the portrait hole, the Fat Lady threw one glance at Sirius and called out:

"Oh, it's you! Sirius, you're back again! In you go!"

The three teenagers stared at Sirius in awe. And he looked quite smug, when he said to the Fat Lady:

"Good evening, my lady. Yes, I'm back for a visit, but you might see me around now and then. I trust you are well?"

"Oh, I'm well enough, thank you so much!"

The portrait swung open and they got in. Remus grinned and said:

"Ever the same old charmer, Siri."

"Maybe! But as you can see, Harry, she still knows me and she still opens up without asking for the password. Don't tell McGonagall or she'll have my head!"

Harry, Hermione and Ron snickered.

"How did you get her to open without a password?" Hermione asked.

"Now, that is something I cannot tell you. You're WAY too young!" Sirius smirked.

"Whatever he did, it can't have been legal, Hermione," Remus remarked.

"It's just my charm. Remember, I never had to give her the password in our sixth and seventh year, Moony!"

"That's true. All others were in awe, and he never even bothered to keep a password. James tried to chastise her, but to no avail. He didn't go so far as to report Siri though. That would have gone against an unwritten Marauder-law," Remus explained.

Unfortunately he had been overheard by the Weasley twins who were at this moment coming through the portrait hole.

"Did I just hear Marauders?" George asked.

"And did I hear the name Moony?" Fred followed suit.

"Er – yes, why?" Sirius asked back.

"Do you mean to insinuate that you were a Marauder, Professor Lupin?" George asked on.

"Oops…" Remus made and blushed.

"No need to blush if it's true – you're our hero, do you know that? Thanks to you and your friends whoever they are we've learned more about this school than any teacher, teachers present excluded of course, could ever have taught us!" said George excitedly.

"How so?" Remus asked in his best teacher mode.

Now the twins blushed.

"Oops.." said George.

"If you tell me how this comes to be, then I'll tell you, whether I was a Marauder," Remus said and grinned.

"Well, in that case, Fred, what do you think?"

"We'd better own up, George. Will you get the item?"

"I will…"

George ran up to his dormitory and came back carrying an old piece of parchment. He looked around and said conspiratorially:

"I suppose you would know this?"

"The Marauder's Map!" Sirius and Remus both exclaimed.

"You know it, too?"

"Of course I know it, I helped draw and charm it," said Sirius and grinned, "Padfoot at your service!"

"And I'm Moony. – Now, I'm sorry, but this parchment can only have been retrieved by you in a most illegal way, George! I happen to know that Mr Filch has confiscated it from Peter Pettigrew three weeks before we finished school. So – out with it!"

Fred sighed.

"Well, when we were here all fresh and new and innocent…"

Harry, Ron and Hermione snorted.

"…and innocent! We got into a spot of trouble with Filch, er… Mr Filch. He dragged us to his office and we sat there, awaiting punishment when George saw this drawer, and it was marked with…"

"…Confiscated – Dangerous! – Of course we expected there would be something interesting, so I caused a diversion by accidentally…"

More snorts.

"…dropping a dungbomb. While Filch was busy being outside of his mind and almost trying to eat me up, Fred opened the drawer, grabbed something and hid it. We got away somehow. Then we looked at the parchment we got and – well, it took some time to figure it out, but then we found it."

"You did?" Remus said, still in his teacher tone, but obviously quite amused.

"We did."

George pulled out his wand, tapped the parchment and said in a low voice, so only they could hear it:

"I solemnly swear that I'm up to no good."

Harry, Ron and Hermione watched with big eyes how there were a few lines on the parchment, then a green writing started and wrote:

Messrs Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs

Purveyors of Aids to Magical Mischief-Makers

Are proud to present

**THE MARAUDER'S MAP**

Lines spread all over the parchment and after a while Harry saw that they drew a plan of Hogwarts. And what was that? There were tiny dots with labels and the labels showed names. Most of them moved, but once he found the Gryffindor common room he saw all of their names and even Crookshanks turned up.

"Wow," he said.

"So **that's** how you two got around all the time without being caught!" Ron said and grinned.

"Yep."

"Did you use the passages to the outside?" Remus asked.

"Noooo," Fred stressed.

"Hm…" Remus made.

"Well, yes, sometimes… but there's not many that still work. Out of these seven, Filch knows of four of them. So they're being watched. And the one behind the mirror on the fourth floor caved in last year. The one under the Whomping Willow we don't understand at all, no one can get through there, the willow would kill them, wouldn't it? So we did use the one under the statue of the one-eyed witch on the third floor."

"So, so… well, I'm afraid we now know your secret, so I can freely admit that yes, I was a Marauder and yes, we created this map. In fact, it was my idea."

"Which is why Moony's name is the first one. Moony researched most of the spells we needed to enchant this map. The password is thoroughly mine, though."

The teenagers grinned. Sirius looked exactly like he would have invented something like this.

"The welcoming phrase is out of Sirius' mouth, too," said Remus.

"I suppose you'll confiscate it now, Professor?" George said sadly.

"I was considering it, but I think we had an agreement, didn't we?" Remus replied with a wink.

George and Fred beamed.

"You're definitely the best teacher we ever had, Professor Lupin!" they chorused.

"Thank you. But remember: don't get caught."

"Professor, do you know anything about the passage that leaves from under the Whomping Willow? You couldn't have drawn it in if you didn't know about it…" asked Fred.

"Yes, I do know about that one, but you don't want to know, believe me. It's no use to you anyway, it doesn't lead to Hogsmeade," Remus said and sounded a bit sharp.

"Is there really a way to pass that willow?"

"There is. It's so simple you'd never guess it. But you still don't want to go there. And you know you're not supposed to get close to the willow," Remus insisted.

"Oh, but we guessed your password," Fred said happily.

"This is different."

"Remus is right! Don't even go there, please. It's nothing of interest, and the passage might have caved in, too," Sirius said.

"Okay. We won't go there."

"Good. I take your word on that," Remus said.

"Then you'd better clear the map now, George," Fred ordered.

"Yes, I think that would be better, too. – Mischief managed."

The lines and the writing on the map vanished. Sirius asked the twins if they had encountered something special when they first tried to get into the map without the password.

"Oh yes! Fairly rude remarks! We were close to giving up!"

Sirius smirked.

"Good. We were never able to test that one…"

"Who were Wormtail and Prongs? Those are very strange names, anyway…"

"Prongs was Harry's Dad. And Wormtail was Peter Pettigrew."

Katie came into the common room and asked around if anyone minded that she'd turn the WWN on. No one did, so she turned it on. It was only the news though and everyone froze, when they heard the newsreader say:

"As of today the wizarding community of Britain has an Interim Minister, because the Minister of Magic, Cornelius Fudge, has been arrested this morning under the charge of having used the Cruciatus curse. There is evidence he had used this curse to retain a suspect back in November 1981. The Ministry was not willing to hand out further details as the affair is under investigation. The new Interim Minister is Arthur Weasley. Weasley had so far been working in the Office for Misuse of Muggle Artefacts. His first years at the Ministry he had been an Auror who had been active in the fight against You-Know-Who. Weasley is 55 years old, married to Molly Weasley, and they have seven children, among them the current Head Boy of Hogwarts, Percy Weasley and a former Head Boy, the oldest of their six sons, Bill Weasley. He is expected to give a first public statement tomorrow afternoon."

"Wow, your Dad's the minister now!" half of the common room cried out.

All five Weasley children were frozen on the spot. They all looked at each other and wondered how this came to be. Sirius and Remus looked at each other. They knew of course, but they kept it to themselves. It was time for them to leave anyway. Remus turned to Hermione and said:

"I was going to grade your essay, when I got Sirius' letter yesterday, but I'll do it tonight, Hermione, okay?"

"Thanks, Professor Lupin."

"You'll get extra credit. And we'll get to treat werewolves still, but only at the end of the year."

Harry shuddered. Werewolves had not been a subject until now, but they had seen and heard things before and all of these things were ugly. How vicious werewolves were supposed to be, constantly lusting for the blood of humans and never ever to be trusted. Now he knew one and what he knew about Professor Lupin only told him that some people seemed to spread lies. He decided to ask Hermione what she had written in her essay later on.

Sirius and Remus said good night and left the common room. Harry remained silent after they left. The Weasleys, even Percy, had started an impromptu celebration and the whole common room was in uproar. Hermione noticed Harry to be so quiet and sat down next to him.

"What's wrong, Harry?"

"Hermione, what did you write in your essay?"

"The werewolf essay? Well, how to recognise them, about them transforming at full moon, how they are, how they are supposed to be killed, silver or aconite are the things. And some of their behaviour patterns. Why?"

"Might be that you are hurting Remus a lot with it, you know…"

"Because he's a werewolf himself, you mean?"

Harry stared at her.

"You KNOW that?"

"Well, it wasn't hard to guess. He missed classes beginning of October and beginning of November. Both times the full moon was up. Then when we fought that Boggart his Boggart became a full moon. It's what he naturally must fear most, isn't it?"

"Oh, that's what it was then. I was wondering, too, and then Lavender wondered why he was afraid of crystal balls. I thought maybe Trelawney had prophesised his death once too often, too," Harry said lightly.

"Anyway, I figured it out, but I thought it better not to start a panic. So he told you, hasn't he?"

"Yes, he told me today. He didn't ask me to, but I'm not going to tell anyone. Are you afraid of him now?"

"No, why should I be? I'm sure he's doing something to keep us safe from himself. Dumbledore wouldn't have hired him if he thought he presented a danger…" Hermione said.

"Maybe Dumbledore doesn't know?"

"I can't imagine that. Okay, he probably didn't know Quirrell was a servant of You-Know-Who, but he usually knows most everything going on here. And I'm sure, Professor Lupin wouldn't have told you if Dumbledore didn't know."

All of a sudden Ron stood before them.

"Hey, aren't you celebrating with us? Don't you think my Dad will make a good minister?"

"Of course, Ron, he'll do a much better job than Fudge, I'm sure of that," said Hermione.

"Then come out of this corner, stop being so boring!"

"We're coming," said Harry.

He didn't feel much like celebrating though, there was much too much going through his head right then. So he told Ron a bit later, that he wanted to go to bed.

"Sorry, Ron, I'm very happy for you and all, but there was so much I heard this afternoon, I just have to mull it all over in my head. I'm going up to the dormitory."

"Okay, Harry, I think I understand. Will you tell me, when you're ready?"

"I'd tell you right now, as parts of it is also very good news and I'm very happy right now, believe me, but you have every right to have some raucous celebration going on. You'll hear soon enough!"

"Well then, good night, Harry."

"Good night, Ron."

Harry went up the stairs to his dorm. No one oversaw Hermione follow him just a minute later. She caught up with Harry and asked him quietly:

"Are you just going up or are you going to bed?"

"I felt like being alone. Or with someone quiet like you, actually, because that's too boisterous down there for me at the moment."

"I can understand that – can I come with you then?"

"Sure. Come in!"

They went into the room and Harry turned on the candles.

"Let's sit on the window seat," he suggested.

"Yes, that's a good idea. It's much more crammed in here! Our dorm only has three beds, so that gives a lot more space for us."

"It's quite okay though. Remus told me this was his and my Dad's and Sirius' dorm, too. Seems I have his bed."

Hermione smiled.

"You seem to really like him."

"I do! I like him as a teacher and this afternoon – well, he was just so nice and I think he and Sirius are really good friends. They also told me he was supposed to be my godfather, but they wouldn't allow it because he's a werewolf. It must be hard to live with that, Hermione."

"Yes, I think so, too. Now I'm almost sorry he is going to grade my essay…"

"You did all the work, he probably thinks it's not fair to just throw that away."

"He's always so kind. The books I checked for the essay all say that werewolves are just brutes and that one can see they are brutes. He has nothing of a brute, he's so frail and he has such an aristocratic face. I think, some of these authors didn't even know what they were talking about. He's quite good looking, don't you think?"

"Can't judge I guess… remember Lockhart, Hermione!"

"Oh, that was evil, Harry Potter! To remind me of this embarrassing thing!"

He laughed. She grinned though and knew he was only teasing. Then she said:

"That dog is quite impressive, don't you think?"

"Yes, he is. But so friendly! Oh, that's why Sirius is an Animagus, by the way, he, Dad and Pettigrew wanted to do something to help Remus. As animals they were able to stay with Remus through the night. They told me that before that he would be locked into the Shrieking Shack – hence the passage under the Willow – and in the morning he went to Madam Pomfrey. She had to patch him up, because he often bit and scratched himself badly. Sometimes she even had to go and get him, because he couldn't go back to the hospital wing on his own."

"Oh my! That sounds terrible."

"It does, doesn't it? So when he was joined by the other three they formed like a pack. They had fun together and Remus wouldn't hurt himself."

"But what if he bit any of the others?"

"They were animals. He bit them quite often in play, I think Sirius got most of it, because he's a dog, but nothing happened to them but a few bites and scratches. He didn't curse them."

"Wow. – Do you think, Sirius would be willing to teach me how to become an Animagus? I'd love to learn that! And I'm not so sure whether Professor McGonagall would be willing to teach me. Not yet in any case."

"Well, ask him. He might. He was something of a rogue, if I got that right."

"'Purveyors of Aids to Magical Mischief Makers' – how much more need I say?" Hermione grinned.

"You know, you're not that bad in making mischief yourself! Need I say Polyjuice Potion? Or Mountain Troll?" Harry teased.

"No, you needn't. Need I remind you that you were deeply involved in all of these events? And what about the Chamber of Secrets, eh?" she teased right back.

"Oh, you're so easy to tease, Hermione," he said and gave her a peck on the nose.

Both of them froze. Then they laughed and finally Hermione took her leave. He asked:

"Do you want the cloak? I could come down with you and release you on the other side…"

"Yes, that would be great. Otherwise I'll get teased even worse!"

Harry picked the cloak out of his trunk and draped it over himself and Hermione. They were getting very close, so they were covered completely and then they slowly moved down the stairs and even more slowly across the common room. They managed though and as soon as they were around the corner, Harry let her out of the cloak. Hermione went up to her dormitory. He looked after her and wondered what that peck had meant. Then he had to concentrate to get back to his own dorm. He moved stealthily through the crowd and finally got to the staircase. From there he was back in the dorm quickly and after putting the cloak back in his trunk he went to bed.

* * *

Lots of thanks and some replies to the reviewers: 

kungzoune: you're getting your wish -)

dede100pour100me: I  
don't know if Sirius in PoA was aware of Remus being in the castle and from on what point he was aware of the fact. So I figured if he loved Remus and if he realised Remus was the one person who would know how and where to find him, then he should rather be the one to come out first. The chances of a positive result were much higher this way. Even Sirius in his reduced state of mind would realise that. As for prettiness… you'll have to wait and see. No one gets pretty after looking the way Sirius does after twelve years of no physical care at all. I thought I had made him still better looking than he probably was in JKR's eyes, LOL 

Shadow Cat17: Glad, you like this story, too. Mine usually all turn around a possibility to free Sirius and get him back together with Remus -)


	4. Getting back into Life

**4. Getting Back Into Life**

Remus and Sirius left the common room through the portrait hole. The Fat Lady wished them both a good night.

"Still quite the love birds, I see," she said.

"We are, my lady, we definitely are! I consider myself the happiest man on earth right now, for I am in love with the most beautiful and wonderful creature on this planet!" Sirius said.

Remus blushed.

"Oh stop it! You're going to make me blush!"

"Going to? You are blushing, love! And it's very becoming, don't you think so, too, my lady?"

"Yes, I do think so. But now you should better go!"

"I wish you a good night, my lady! Some other time!" Sirius said cheerfully and put his arm around Remus, then they walked through the long corridor and finally down the stairs.

Remus enjoyed Sirius' arm around his shoulder. He leaned into it and put his own around Sirius' waist. He looked forward to getting back to his rooms. He wouldn't sit down anywhere, he'd pull Sirius straight on the bed. When they got there, Remus just moved on into the bedroom and Sirius asked, scandalised:

"Remus! It's still much too early, you don't want to go to sleep, do you?"

Remus grinned and played along.

"Oh, but of course, early to bed, early to rise, you know me! Besides, it's not precisely sleep I have in mind…"

"Not? So what could it be then? Not that innocent me knows anything to do in a bed but sleep…"

"Cough, cough…" Remus feigned a coughing fit.

Sirius raised an eyebrow. Remus pulled him closer and kissed him.

"You are too cheeky for your own good, Padfoot," he chided.

"I didn't oppose to the kiss, now did I?"

"Not exactly, but I'm not entirely convinced…"

This time Sirius pulled Remus in and kissed him deeply. Remus moaned a bit, and coaxed Sirius' lips open, then invaded his mouth with his tongue. Sirius met it and their tongues curled around each other, touched, caressed, were pulled over teeth and lips and back again pushed against the other tongue. Sirius felt Remus' arousal through his robes and closed his eyes in delight. They held onto each other tightly. Remus started to loosen the clasps on Sirius' black robe. All of a sudden he pulled back.

"I just remembered something, Siri! Shouldn't you tell your parents that you're well and free before they hear it from the press or the radio? And I'll need to send an owl to Papa, too."

"Are they still well? Remus, I'm almost scared! How did they react, do you know?"

"They were both very sad about it all, Siri, I don't think they believed you were guilty. I haven't been in close contact with them, though, and when we met we all tried to avoid the subject."

"I understand that. We have until tomorrow night and tomorrow is Saturday. Can you leave here?"

"Sure, it's weekend and I'm a teacher, not a student, you dummy!"

Sirius grinned.

"'M just so used to being a student here – it's still a strange concept that you changed to the other side!"

Remus laughed, too, then looked at his watch.

"Let's floo call them. That's what I can do from here, I can call, and I can be called, but it's not connected for travel."

"Yes, let's do that. As long as we're still decent…"

Remus pulled Sirius by the hand into the living room and threw some floo powder into the fire. Then he called:

"Sheridan Place…"

It took a while, but then Remus' father turned up and said:

"Remus! Did something happen?"

"Hi Papa. Yes, you could say so. Sirius is here."

"What? And you're not calling the ministry?"

"No. He's been cleared this morning, Papa, he's innocent! It was Peter!"

"Oh my! I always had that suspicion, but you brushed it away, remember? So how did you find out?"

"We caught Peter who wasn't dead at all, but had spent twelve years as a rat. He was a pet of one of the students here, Sirius knew and he wrote me a letter to get hold of the rat. I did and then everything came out. That's why Fudge has been arrested by the way. Did you hear that?"

"Yes, I did, but why is there a connection?"

"Remember, that he was the first on the spot when Sirius was arrested? Several minutes before the first Aurors turned up, in fact, and to restrain Sirius, he tried to put him under Imperius, then, as this didn't work, he put him under Cruciatus! That's the true reason he's been arrested now. Grover was here this morning and he couldn't but take Fudge into custody after that."

"Did he admit he used the curses?"

"Of course not, but Sirius said under Veritaserum that he had done it. I don't think anyone can lie under that stuff."

"Oh my. So, where is he?"

"I'm here, Edward, good evening," Sirius said.

"Hello, Sirius! I'm so glad to see you! You do look a lot better than those posters already…"

"Thanks. Poppy looked me over and repaired my teeth, Remus took care of my hair. And now I feel like a halfway decent person again."

"Good! It was nice of you to call!"

"We thought we have to do that before you hear it through the WWN news or the Daily Prophet. We did the easy bit first, now it's on to Sirius' parents."

"They will be happy, Sirius! I've met them the other day and your Dad said that he didn't really care whether you did it or not, he hoped you'd get away and not be captured again."

Sirius' face lit up when he heard that. Now he wasn't so scared to face his parents anymore. He smiled and thanked Edward:

"Thank you so much for telling me that, Edward! I'm not half as nervous to contact them anymore now."

"That's okay."

"Oh, Papa, I've got Sirius' Gringotts key in my desk. Top right drawer – there's a small box with several things, could you owl that to me, please?"

"Certainly, Remus. I'll go and check it right away and I'll send CeeCee over with it. Is there anything else I can do for you?"

"No, that's all. It's all fine here."

"So, do you like teaching, Remus?"

"I'd never thought I could like it as much, Papa! It's great and the students seem to like me, so I really feel great at the moment. Severus' potion is a bit worse than yours though… I think he does it on purpose."

"Wouldn't put it past him. If you want me to make it for you, just say it."

"No, it's not that bad."

"Okay. I could always teach Sirius how to make it, he was as good at Potions as Snape," Edward offered.

"Oh, that's a good idea. If you're willing, Siri…"

"What potion? Oh, the one you take before the full moon? I'd love to, Edward. We'll talk about that soon, okay?"

"Any time, Sirius! He's getting it from Severus, but having another back-up couldn't be wrong. And I'm sure yours will turn out more like mine. It's not very nice stuff, but it helps."

"Well, I'm sure if Snape found a way to make it uglier than necessary, he did it," Sirius said.

"He's only doing it on Dumbledore's order anyway," Edward remarked.

"Never mind, Papa, I'm getting it and that's all I need. We'll call later, I think we ought to call Siri's parents now," Remus said.

"Always avoiding the subject, Remus. But anyway, have a good night and regards to your parents, Sirius!"

"Good night, Papa!" Remus huffed.

"Good night, Edward," said Sirius.

Edward vanished from the fireplace. Remus took another pinch of the powder and threw it into the flames, then he called:

"Black Manor…"

A minute later Duncan Black replied.

"Who is it? – Oh, Remus, it's you! Why are you calling us?"

"Dad, there's something that happened today that might make you very happy," Remus said.

"Is it something with Sirius? Did he contact you?"

"Yes, he was able to contact me. He sent me a letter, which I got yesterday in the morning and informed me that a student here has a pet, which was in fact an Animagus named Peter Pettigrew. We got hold of it and questioned Peter, after I made him show himself. Peter was the spy, Dad! Peter was the secret keeper, too, and Peter was the one who betrayed James and Lily Potter to Voldemort and Peter was the one who killed all the Muggles back then. Sirius has been pardoned and is now in negotiation next week with Ashley Grover for a compensation. Grover has been leading the investigation this morning. I was able to get Sirius into Hogwarts early this morning and by the early afternoon everything was over."

"Oh sweet Merlin, Remus, that's the most wonderful thing that ever happened to me since that dratted day! Where is he? Is he still with you?"

"Yes, he's here. Just a bit shy, I suppose…"

Sirius moved closer to the fireplace again. He was glad, that Remus had taken over the explaining. He was already afraid he'd have to explain too much too many times in the next days.

"Hello, Dad! I'm right here," he said.

"Sirius! Oh Merlin, you're there and in one piece! Can you come down soon?"

"Yes, Dad, I can, once the public announcement is over I'll be free to travel as I like. I'm afraid of all of the big fuss everyone will make."

"I can understand that, my son. I'm so relieved to hear the good news, just you wait until I tell your Mum! She's still out in the shop, she's taken to keeping it open late on Friday. You'll have to come Sunday, okay?"

"We'll be there, Dad. We'll talk about it all then, okay?"

"Yes, Sirius, that will be fine. Oh, I can't wait for Adara to come home!" Duncan was so excited now, that he almost forgot he was still talking to his son.

"Give Mum my love, Dad. And we're to send regards from Edward Lupin, we just spoke to him."

"We met him two weeks ago."

"Yes, he's told us."

"Anyway, I'd better let you go. We'll see you on Sunday. Come for lunch, both of you, okay?"

"Okay. We might bring Harry along, Dad. I'm going to claim my guardianship over him."

"Harry? Oh, the Potter boy. Yes, sure, bring him along! We'd love to meet him, if he's to become our grandchild!"

"He's a very fine kid, Dad. Good night!"

"Good night, lads!"

"Good night, Dad," Remus said.

After that they both took a deep breath at the same time. And laughed, relieved. Sirius embraced Remus:

"Oh, I'm so glad you remembered that! I would have totally forgotten!"

"They would have every right to be furious, if you had!"

"Absolutely. – But how was that again with doing something in that bed of yours that's not sleeping?"

"You've got a one track mind, Sirius. And a dirty one on top of everything!" Remus teased.

"You're a damn good teaser, Moony, are you as good as that in holding what you promise?"

"What did I promise?" Remus asked innocently.

"This!"

Sirius groped Remus' slightly hard cock. Remus grinned and leaned into the touch, then said seductively:

"Oh, you bet I'm even better in holding what I promise – you only have to follow me."

"I'm following you to the end of the earth, Moony."

"That will be right back here, as the planet is a ball, love."

Sirius grinned. They went back to the bedroom, undressed and hopped right into the bed. The house-elves had been in to clean up. So the bed was neatly made, but they didn't have an eye for it, when they pulled the covers back and just fell down on the soft mattress. It was different than in the morning. Both wanted completion now. Both seemed to be in a hurry to make the first real contact with each other after the long separation and both rolled around on the bed, legs and arms holding onto the other as if they were drowning. Remus landed on top. He was a lot stronger than Sirius, not only because Sirius was but skin and bones, but because there was a strength in Remus that was not visible from the outside.

He pinned Sirius on the bed and leaned down to kiss him. Sirius relented and just enjoyed the kiss, which was incredibly tender after their fierce beginning. Remus wrapped his arms around Sirius and held him tight, while he started to undulate on top of Sirius, let him feel his erection and pressed it down on his partner's. Now that he had gained the upper hand, Remus went on to caress his lover. Slowly, with both hands and tongue, the latter sometimes supplemented with his lips and teeth, he travelled from Sirius' mouth over his earlobes, the neck, bit lovingly down on the throat, continued by way of the nipples down to the navel. Sirius moaned. These were sensations he had completely forgotten. The Dementors had been good enough with their treatments to pull all his memories of the good side of their relationship out of him. Completely, he had thought. But now the feelings came back. Sirius started to remember how it felt, when they had made love in their youth. He breathed hard and sighed, moaned, then screamed, when Remus buried his nose in the thick bush of black pubic hair. Sirius' cock was hard. Remus laved it and caressed the balls with his hand.

"Oh Merlin, Sirius, this is just so good…" Remus murmured.

Sirius had lost his ability to speak in coherent phrases, even words wouldn't come out anymore. Remus continued to treat him, until he couldn't hold back anymore. Sirius held out a bit longer than in the morning, when everything had been a bit of a surprise, but he still didn't last very long. Remus didn't care. He'd train his Siri until he was as tireless as he had been in the days of their youth.

Spent, Sirius found his speech again.

"Oh Remus, it's unbelievable! You know I remembered almost every time we made love in Azkaban, but for the life of me I couldn't remember how it FELT? It was sheer torture! This morning – it was like a surprise I even got an erection, but now you are doing all this and it's all coming back!"

Sirius broke out in tears. Remus let them flow, he held Sirius and postponed his own completion, Sirius needed to get these Azkaban horrors out of his system as well as he possibly could. It took a long time. Once Sirius let his tears flow he couldn't stop them. Remus rubbed his back softly, kissed him on the forehead and otherwise just held him. Finally Sirius was exhausted and fell asleep. Remus pulled up the blankets and covered them both, pulled Sirius into his arms and tried to sleep, too. He was too deep in thoughts though. He wondered how Sirius would cope with all the publicity he'd get in the next weeks. How long would it take until the whole uproar would be over. Sirius needed to heal, and huge crowds would not be helping him. And Remus couldn't be with him during the week. He planned to take Duncan Black aside on Sunday and ask him to stay close to Sirius as well as he could.

Remus went to sleep, it had been a very turbulent day and he was tired enough to sleep until the next evening. But they woke up long before noon. Remus was glad it was Saturday. He looked down on Sirius who was just opening his eyes. They were still a bit bloodshot from all the crying the night before. Remus stroked over Sirius' cheeks and smiled down at him.

"Love you, sweetheart," he said.

"Love you, too, Moony," Sirius mumbled.

They proceeded to repeat the previous night's performance, but this time Sirius held through a bit longer and Remus got to actually get his part as well. He cried out in bliss when he entered Sirius for the first time in twelve years. This was home! He felt elated, just knowing that he did what he did and with whom. Then he started to thrust, slowly, building up in speed and intensity and he didn't stop until he came. Sirius panted under him, pulled him down and held him tight.

"Sirius! Sirius! I – oh, Merlin, this is so good…" Remus sighed.

He buried his face in Sirius' neck. Then he admitted:

"You're not the only one who nearly forgot how it feels…"

"We need to get used to having it again, love," Sirius said tenderly.

"Yes. It will take some time. We've got a lot of repairing to do."

But they decided to get up and face the world. Today would be the last day they could hide in their cocoon, as the next day would mean the public announcement of Sirius' innocence and acquittal, therefore there was a lot of mail and some reporters to be expected and feared. They only told Albus of their plans to head down to Black Manor and also asked if they would be allowed to bring Harry along.

"Yes, if he wants to come and meet your parents, I see no reason not to allow this. I'm glad you contacted them, Sirius."

"Remus reminded me, to be honest. I'm very glad he did," Sirius admitted.

"We'd best go and look for Harry then," Remus suggested.

"Do you know where he's hanging out on Saturdays?"

"Well, we'd best start in the common room, I'd guess."

"Okay. – Oh, and Albus, would it help Harry, if I wrote him a permission slip for the Hogsmeade weekends?"

"Certainly. Give it to Minerva, she'll gladly add him to the list of those who have it. He didn't take it well that he wasn't allowed to go."

"He's thirteen. I don't think I would have taken it well either, at that age," Sirius said and smiled. Then he remembered something else.

"Oh, and I was wondering who supplied him for Hogwarts and all? I had the Potters' Gringotts key when I was arrested and it was of course taken away," he asked.

"Yes, I know. The Ministry sent it to me and I set up a smaller vault for Harry with only a small part of his inheritance. He's supplied himself. I'll give the original key back to you."

"I'm relieved! I've taken it to put several things into their vault which I found in the house. There should be three large boxes with material in the vault. Anything I found in James' and Lily's drawers and desks I thought might be important I took out and stored it in the vault."

"I had seen these boxes, but never looked at them. Good to know, because we were wondering where all the papers went to. Only their wills were found, but these had been kept at their lawyer's office."

"Oh, that's why I haven't found them. I was looking for them to put them into reach of the investigators."

Then they went to look for Harry and found him in the library, where he was sitting with Hermione and a grumbling Ron, who hated to spend free time in the library.

"Hi guys!" Sirius said lightly.

"Hi Sirius, hi Remus!" Harry said and beamed at them.

"Good morning all."

"Harry, I'll be going down to see my parents tomorrow. Would you like to come with us? Professor Dumbledore just gave us permission to take you along, if you want to," Sirius said.

"Oh, I don't know… would you want to take me along then?"

"Yes, Harry, I would want to take you with us. I've already asked my Dad yesterday and he'd like to meet you. He's likely to tell you to call him granddad, you know."

Harry smiled. It felt good to have a family. So he nodded and said:

"Then I'd like to come with you. Thank you!"

"You're going to like it there, it's a nice place. Though it's definitely nicer in the summer, but you will probably see a lot of it, either my parent's place or Remus' father's place, as we will have to look for our own first. It seems a waste of money though, as both places are huge! You'll get your own room at both of them… and you'll need to tell your aunt and uncle that you won't be coming back."

"Oh, that'll be a pleasure! I'll send Hedwig, then they get angry. Hedwig is clever enough not to get hit by them."

"Who's Hedwig?" Sirius asked.

"My snowy owl. Hagrid gave her to me to my birthday, when we went shopping for the school supplies. She's really great!"

"That she is! Very dignified," Ron confirmed.

"She has style, Ron," Hermione corrected.

"You could also name it style, of course. Sometimes she's downright haughty," Ron insisted.

Sirius laughed.

"Oh, good, then send them a letter. We'll have to go to them once more and talk to them, though. Even if they won't want to. But you don't need to come with us then, no worries. We'll leave here tomorrow at ten, so you'd best meet us down in the entrance hall, okay?"

"Okay. I'll be there."

* * *

Four owls were expecting Remus when they got back to his rooms. They were patiently waiting by the window and held several packages. When Remus took them in he noticed they all came from his father. He had not only sent the box Remus had mentioned, but also a selection of Sirius' clothes, especially some warm things. Sirius was almost moved to tears.

"You know I always thought you have your consideration from your father, love! I'm so glad for this!"

There were several pairs of trousers, shirts and jumpers, his winter cloak, two sets of robes and even some pyjamas. Remus had taken hold of the small box. It contained things like Sirius' Gringotts key, Remus' ring, some other jewellery. Remus put the box down on his nightstand in the bedroom and waited for Sirius to get dressed into a pair of black jeans, a shirt and a jumper. Everything was too wide, even though Sirius had always been slim. A wave of Remus' wand took care of that.

"Well, I will need a couple of new things, belts, socks, shoes and boots, more underwear and some new robes."

"You have all the time in the world to go shopping soon, love," Remus told him.

"I'm not so sure I'm going to venture out a lot in the next few weeks! My face will be all over the bloody Daily Prophet and they're going to tear me apart if I show it on the streets…"

"You'll just have to sit the first angry tides out."

"That's what I plan to do. I could assist you… that would help time to pass faster."

-

"How do we get there, Sirius? And where is it?" Harry asked the next morning.

"We will floo from the Three Broomsticks. It's on the south coast, a bit to the west of Plymouth," Sirius explained.

"Isn't that a very long way to floo?"

"It will take you about two or three minutes. I could apparate you, but I don't dare to right now. So we'll both use the floo, Remus will probably prefer to apparate."

They all donned their warm cloaks. Sirius wore a blue winter robe over black trousers and a white shirt. Harry wondered, from where he had the clothes, but on the way to Hogsmeade Sirius explained:

"Remus' Dad sent me some of my clothes! Isn't that just darling? I'm so glad for them, I really had nothing left and I started to feel stupid wearing an old set of school robes."

"This looks great on you! Compared to that lovely poster of yours…"

"They didn't quite catch my best side, now did they?" Sirius tried to joke.

"I mean you're really looking good."

Sirius ruffled Harry's hair and smiled.

"I know what you mean. You don't only look like your Dad, you make the same kind of awkward compliments, you know!"

Harry looked up to Sirius and said:

"I know as good as nothing about my Dad, Sirius."

"I'll tell you lots of stories, that's all I can do. And there should be some photo albums left somewhere. Just believe me when I tell you that your Dad and your Mum were some of the most wonderful people anyone could know. I loved James like the brother I never had. We were practically brothers, at least in spirit. We looked quite alike, too, apart from James' glasses he had brown eyes whereas mine are blue. But we were of about the same height and same build. He was a bit more level headed than I though."

Remus snorted.

"By about half an inch," he commented.

"But fact remains, he was. He would listen to reason for once in a while. That means he sometimes listened to Remus, who was our voice of reason. I hardly ever did. To send Remus a letter and not go after Pettigrew on my own this time was probably the most reasonable thing I ever did in my life," Sirius admitted.

"How did you do that, Sirius? Did you have anything like parchment and quill with you?"

"No, I didn't. But when we left school, we buried our first wands, one set of robes each and some other stuff that was significant to us somewhere near the shack, and I needed to get there to retrieve my wand. That's why I have one right now. It was the one I got when I came to school. Still works just fine. Once I had that I could transfigure some things, like a bird's feather into a quill and water into ink. There was a bit of parchment in the box, must have been from Remus. But I first snooped around a bit and then I saw Remus. He must have remembered the secret stash as well as I did and if he were to go and look there he'd have my scent in a second and he'd find me. So I thought it better to be first and wrote the letter. I'm more than glad I did it this way. – See, the Dementors are already gone!"

Sirius was quite relieved about that fact. They passed the gates to Hogwarts and walked the half hour to Hogsmeade. That reminded Harry, that he still wasn't allowed to go there. He turned to Sirius to ask him about it, but Sirius grinned and said:

"It's already been taken care of, Harry, Professor McGonagall accepted my permission slip for your Hogsmeade weekends. You'll be able to go with your friends next time."

Harry pounced Sirius and hugged him for the first time. Sirius held him tightly and said:

"It's okay, Harry, from now on you'll get what you should have had all your life. Giving you permission to spend a little money in Hogsmeade is really the most normal thing. What happened that your aunt and uncle didn't sign the form?"

"It had to do with my school, so it was freak and abnormal and they hate everything to do with magic."

"Yes, I remember Petunia to be that way. Your Mum despised them, she'd never wanted you to go there. But I can understand why Albus placed you there, Harry, there were still enough Death Eaters around who could have tried to kill you in revenge for taking care of Voldemort. You were protected by more than wards there. There's some very old magic that only works when you are with a blood relative."

"I see. I won't have that when I come live with you, is that what you're trying to tell me?"

"Yes, that's it. On the other hand you'll have us to look after you and we're not the weakest wizards, believe me. I was an Auror before I was imprisoned. My parents or Remus' Dad are just as powerful. – There! We're getting to the village now. Remus – the glamour?"

"Coming!"

Remus put a glamour over Sirius, so he wouldn't be recognized and he explained to Harry:

"He can't go through floo as Padfoot, so we need to change him a bit, so people won't recognise him and call the Aurors. It will only be out publicly later today that he's innocent and that his name has been cleared."

A short while later they stood at the public fireplace in the Three Broomsticks. Sirius went first, then Remus gave Harry the floo powder and said:

"You'll have to say 'Black Manor', okay?"

"Okay."

Harry took off his glasses and stuffed them safely away, then he threw the powder into the fire, stepped in and said:

"Black Manor!"

After a whirlwind trip down south he finally fell a bit unceremoniously out of the Blacks' fireplace. There was a faint pop and Remus landed next to him. He helped Harry up and brushed a bit of soot from his cloak.

Sirius had already given his parents a first hug. They were both crying of joy and couldn't stop looking at him.

"Gosh, Sirius, you're but skin and bones. Did they feed you nothing there?" his mother asked.

"They did, but you couldn't exactly call it food. Don't know what it was, really…" Sirius muttered.

"Well, I hope you'll get a better look after a few square meals," Adara said.

"I'm in Poppy Pomfrey's able care, Mum…" Sirius replied.

"Then I know you'll get better soon. She knows her trade. – Hello, Remus, my son, how are you doing? I hear you have gotten a teacher's job now?"

"Hello, Mum. Yes, I have, and I'm very happy at it. It was good to come back to Hogwarts."

Sirius quickly led his mother away a bit to explain to her that Harry didn't know about the pair of them yet. She looked at him and said sternly:

"You can't hide this from him if you want to take him in, Sirius!"

"Well, he already knows we're going to live together. But he's only thirteen, Mum. I don't know if I should already talk to him about that and Remus was just as unsure."

"You should, Sirius."

"Okay, I will. Now come and let me introduce you properly."

Sirius pulled Adara back to the others and said:

"Well, Mum, and this is Harry. He's thirteen now."

"Hello Harry, I'm pleased to meet you."

"Hello, Mrs Black. I'm pleased to meet you, too."

"So, how do you like Hogwarts?"

"I love it! It's more my home than my aunt and uncle's ever was. I'm glad I'll be going to live with Sirius and Remus now."

"They will spoil you rotten, I'm sure," Adara smiled.

"Oh, we'll be strict enough, Mum. But I think he didn't have it easy so far, so anything will be better, eh, Harry?" Sirius butted in.

"Definitely," Harry confirmed.

They all proceeded to sit at a beautifully laid table for a scrumptious lunch. Neither Sirius nor Harry needed to be urged to have second helpings. All during the meal they kept talking. Sirius' parents didn't question him about Azkaban a lot, they could easily sense how difficult it was for him to speak about his experiences there, so they asked about the questioning on Friday, how he escaped and he did tell them a bit about how he was able to survive inside the prison. And what finally drove him to escape.

They ate at a round table, sized to seat the five persons comfortably. Duncan sat down, waving at Remus to take the seat next to him, followed by Sirius, his wife and Harry sat between him and Adara.

During the meal, Remus leaned over and asked Duncan:

"Dad, there's something I'd like to ask your help for. Could you make it possible to be at Sirius' side as often as possible in the next few weeks? We're expecting a lot of publicity, and he'll be exposed to lots of people for sure. And he won't be able to hide in Hogwarts forever. I can't get away during the week, so you'd be the best to help him along. He's still so hurt and for twelve years he had no company except for himself and Dementors. He'll really have a hard time until the storm calms down a bit."

"I've been thinking about that. When will they announce it publicly?"

"Two o'clock news should be the first time…"

"That's in an hour. We'll have to see how people react to this."

Shortly before the time Duncan turned the WWN on. Of course the first headline presented to the public was the news of Sirius' innocence.

"Sirius Black has been acquitted from his charges for murdering twelve Muggles and a wizard on November 1st, 1981. The Ministry has handed out this statement as of this morning, to be broadcast today. According to the Ministry communiqué, new evidence had been found to prove that Sirius Black was innocent. He had in fact been framed by the wizard he was said to have killed in the process. During the questioning of Sirius Black under Veritaserum, he mentioned that Cornelius Fudge had used the Cruciatus curse on him. This has been confirmed by a further communiqué from the Ministry, informing about the reason for Fudge's arrest. Cornelius Fudge had not been authorised to use any Unforgivable Curses. Even the authorised Aurors were strictly forbidden to use Cruciatus.

So far, there has been no public statement by Sirius Black himself. He will be in negotiations for a compensation from the Ministry for the 11 ½ years served in Azkaban. No amount had yet been mentioned."

Sirius sighed. This would cause a landslide, he was sure. And, not surprising, there were the first owls arriving already during the afternoon. One was from Ashley Grover, congratulating him for his acquittal and offering a date on the following Wednesday to clear the remaining questions. Then there was one from Arthur Weasley in his new function as Interim Minister, also starting by his congratulations and by inviting him for the following day, first for a conversation with himself, then for a public statement to the press, to be held at the Ministry. The owl waited for a reply, so Sirius scribbled a hasty acceptance and sent it on its way. The other two owls were from old school friends, sent to Sirius' parents to pass on to Sirius, should he be in contact with them.

But that was only the start. Soon there were owls from the Daily Prophet and from Witch Weekly, closely followed by the editor of a publishing house who offered an enormous amount of money for a written report about his life in Azkaban and of course his escape, and several companies who wanted him to either work for them or to do commercials for them. Sirius shook his head at most of them. He sent negative replies to all of them, because it was clearly noticeable that they only wanted to exploit his status as infamous ex-convict.

Out of practicality, Adara asked Sirius to stay at the Manor for the night, and he gladly accepted.

"Thanks, Mum. Would you and Dad be ready to come with me tomorrow?"

"Yes, I will do that, Sirius. This is surely going to be very hard on you, so you shouldn't be alone. We'll be with you!"

"Thanks, Dad! I have no idea what to expect there."

"Lots of uproar in any case. And uncomfortable questions."

Remus turned to him and asked in a low voice:

"Will you be alright, all alone tonight, love?"

"I don't know, Moony, but I will have to be there at 9.30, might be easier to go from here than Hogwarts."

"You have to know. It's certainly less complicated than to pass all the wards on Hogwarts. It's just because I can't stay with you, I have to bring Harry back."

"I'll come back tomorrow after that press conference is through, Remus."

"Right now I'm really not afraid of losing you again," Remus smiled.

Harry watched their quiet conversation for a moment, then thought about what the Weasley twins had suspected. He resolved to ask Remus when they walked back to the castle later on. Remus looked at the time and excused himself and Harry.

"I think, Harry and I had better get on the way now. We want to be back at the school for dinner," he said.

"That's fine, Remus, but I hope we'll see you again soon. How about during the Christmas break?"

"Only after the Christmas day I'm afraid. Full moon falls on Christmas Eve," Remus remarked.

"That's still fine with us, Remus. You need to rest before you come, in any case," Adara said.

He smiled at her. She had been the first of their parents to learn about the relationship between he and Sirius. She had also been one of only four persons other than the Marauders themselves who knew about them being Animagi. And she had been informed of Remus' lycanthropy early on. Harry guessed she had to know about Remus being a werewolf, as he casually mentioned the full moon.

Duncan and Adara fussed about Harry when saying goodbye, so Remus and Sirius were able to steal a kiss without Harry noticing. Then Remus sent Harry on through the Floo back to the Three Broomsticks. He apparated there and was already waiting for his young protégé when he arrived. Harry smiled and they walked up to the castle together. He kept thinking about how to ask his teacher whether he had a loving relationship with his other guardian, but finally just asked:

"Remus, may I ask you something?"

"Sure. What do you want to know, Harry?"

"You and Sirius. Are you in love with each other?"

Remus blushed, but decided that a direct question like this deserved a direct answer and he was not going to lie.

"Yes, Harry, we are. We have been since our own school days, in fact."

"Oh. That seems like a long time…"

"It was much too short, really. I mean we barely had a few years after we left school and – well, that night."

"It must be nice to be together again…"

"Yes, Harry, it's wonderful! I'm glad you asked and I'm glad I could tell you. I hope you're not uncomfortable with it."

"Why should I?"

"Well, there are still a lot of people who have issues when it comes to homosexuality, you know."

"Oh, because of that, you mean. I just happen to think that Uncle Vernon always gets angry when someone or something brings that subject up and calls them 'bloody poofs' and then I usually get the opinion, if he thinks it's a bad thing then it must in truth be okay. Because he has this idea of normality, you know, and everything that differs from **his** normality is put down. Like my magic."

Remus shrugged.

"You can't change him. He's got this view and he'll surely keep it. I remember that Lily implored us not to be too obvious at the wedding, but it was **her** wedding and we told her that it was not important what they felt. Only what she felt. And it was a wizarding wedding after all. They had to put up with it, though they left as soon as they could without being rude. There's a lot less homophobia in the wizarding world. Some will probably question Sirius about it, but there won't be an extra amount of remarks. Most will remain indifferent. I'd be a lot more resented because I'm a werewolf than gay."

"Did you always know you're gay?"

"No, I didn't – during puberty I went through the normal stages of recognition and denial and finally acceptance. Wasn't easy, but then it wasn't easy for Sirius either. And finally it wasn't easy to admit we'd both fallen for our best friend. And I was lucky, as my father was never uncomfortable with it and soothed my nerves a lot. – But tell me about yourself; do you have a little crush on anyone?"

Now it was Harry's turn to blush. He looked up at Remus and said:

"Well, I don't know yet. I may have. But I haven't figured it out yet."

"You don't need to say anything. Only when you find out, don't hesitate. It's so nice to feel, give and get love! And as I understood you weren't exactly smothered in love since your parents died."

"To say that would be an understatement."

And the rest of the way back to the school Remus spent with getting some of the stories out of Harry of just how little love he received on Privet Drive. Once they were back at Hogwarts they went directly to the Great Hall, where they split up when Harry joined his friends at the Gryffindor table and Remus moved on to the teacher's table.

Dumbledore spoke to him:

"Hello, Remus! Did you have a nice day?"

"It was very nice, thank you, Albus. Sirius decided to spend the night at the Manor, because Arthur Weasley has asked him to the Ministry tomorrow. There will be a press conference."

"I see. That's fine then. How did he react to the announcement?"

"Took it quite well, I think. Though I'm a bit worried about him being alone tonight."

"Nightmares?"

"At least when he's alone. He has only spent about two or three nights in his human form while on the run. In dog form he's less prone to nightmares."

"Oh dear! It will be agony. – When is he supposed to meet Arthur tomorrow?"

"At 9.30."

"I wonder, if I should go and be there with him."

"Yes, that's a good idea. Though Duncan and Adara will accompany him. But I think it's an excellent idea, if you would consider it. I'm sure he could use your support. I don't want to cancel more classes, so I have to stay behind."

-

Sirius and his parents caught up with their lives during the evening. Sirius was very glad to know they still supported and loved him. Duncan waved it away and explained:

"I don't know if Remus has told you about his attempts of getting a visitor's permit to see you at Azkaban. We tried ourselves, we never heard one word of your side, so we always thought something must be fishy, but we were always denied any information, any view into the files and of course we were never granted a visit either. The ministry also extinguished any kind of evidence that might have helped you, well, that's at least what I suspected, but I'm quite sure it was the case, since shortly after your arrest Crouch was pushed out of the MLE to the Department of International Cooperation and Fudge became Minister. And since he's now being impeached because he used Cruciatus on you, it all becomes even more fishy. And then there was the wrath of Pettigrew's mother who never let one chance pass to tell us how she had always thought you had murderer potential…"

"…oh yes, I do wonder, what dear Agnes has to say **now** – when it turns out that it was **her** precious little boy who killed the Muggles. And who knows who and what else in his time as a Death Eater. She probably can't have her nose in the air so high anymore," Adara chipped in.

Sirius grinned.

"And naturally there was a landslide of hate mail that reached us. We just remained stoic and destroyed it all."

"What about your company? Did you suffer from it?" The grin vanished from Sirius' face immediately.

"For about two years, yes. But then it got better again, and now it's back to normal. People will always have to buy clothes and all of our branches are long back to good business rates. We even opened a new one in Sydney half a year ago."

"I'm glad for that, Dad! I'm sorry to have caused all of this. Had I not gone after Peter alone it probably wouldn't have happened."

"You were always impulsive, son, and I know from where you have it – it's in the family. We had enough reserves to make it through the hard times and then it got back better than before. So no hard feelings on my part. Adara had to close her shop for a while, but she's back doing what she loves most again. And she's doing quite well."

"That's good to hear, Mum. And I'm so glad I had the good sense to write to Remus when I did. I would have killed Peter in cold blood! He willingly doomed me to this fate and what's worse, he doomed James and Lily and their small son! Not to speak of the misery Remus went through. It was probably for the best that I didn't even have to face him after they caught him."

"To think he was in the Weasley family all these years! What impudence!" Adara said.

"I'm still in shock about that, Mum. I promised Ron a new pet though. After all, the rat was his pet for more than two years and Harry told me he carried it around almost everywhere. So I'll have to go and get him an owl for Christmas."

Then they talked about the reason why Fudge had been arrested. Duncan brought Sirius up to speed what had been going on in the Ministry after he was shipped to Azkaban. Sirius knew a few things, but of course he had been mostly cut off from news and was only rarely able to get hold of a newspaper. So Duncan told him that after his arrest, Crouch's reputation started to go somewhat downhill.

"I thought so when they brought his son in. He was put into a cell just a few cells down from mine. And I saw them coming in to see him when he died. His mother was close to being dead herself."

"She actually died just a short time later. Small private funeral, I heard. Then Crouch deteriorated somewhat and before old Minister Kelsey retired, he was made Head of the Department of International Cooperation. And he was soon out for the race to become the new Minister. Fudge had by then become Head of the Department of Magical Catastrophes and was the cleverer politician, so when Dumbledore declined he got the job. There was no really good candidate anyway."

"What a lousy choice he was, though…"

"Well, if people would have known him to have used Cruciatus when he was neither an Auror nor authorised to even use Imperius, they certainly wouldn't have chosen him. But no one knew."

"Very convenient for him. No one knew what happened before he was on the scene and no one could know what he had done to me. I was out of my mind, Dad. I might have well done the deed, you know. But if anyone would only have taken the time to check my wand for my last spell, they would have known. And if anyone would have checked my arm they would have known, too. There's no way to hide that mark. And Voldemort would not have anyone in his ranks without it."

"What mark?" Adara asked, confused.

"Do you mean to tell me that you don't know that all Death Eaters have the Dark Mark burnt into them?" Sirius asked back.

"I have no idea. I've never seen anyone mention a mark…" she said.

"Fudge again! That bumbling idiot is probably closer to the Death Eaters than he ever was to the Light Side. – Voldemort brands every Death Eater with his mark: a skull with the head of a snake protruding out of it."

"You mean the sign they put hovering over a place where they killed people?" Duncan asked.

"Yes, precisely."

"And Peter had this mark?" Adara asked.

"He sure did."

"Oh my. Do you know what happens to him now?"

"Not yet. He'll be tried. But he won't get off easier than I did. I suppose it's going to be a life sentence to Azkaban. They'll need to cast a hold Animagus spell over him and will probably have to redo it every week or so."

At one point in the evening they were interrupted by a call through the Floo. It was Remus.

"Hello, love! Miss me already?"

"You know that! I just thought I should tell you: on the way back to Hogwarts, Harry asked me whether we are involved…"

"Oh – he caught on damn quickly!"

Remus grinned.

"His parent's son, love, couldn't say if that was more his Dad or more his Mum. Anyway, I told him, of course. He asked a straight forward question, it would have been silly and wrong to deny it."

"You did the right thing, sweetheart. – How did he take it?"

"No problem. Would you believe that he thinks it must be okay, because Vernon thinks it is awful?"

Sirius laughed.

"That sounds like Harry! And it does sound like James, doesn't it? I'm glad he knows already, Remus."

"Yes, me too. I am glad he asked, too, I hated the idea of having to sit him down and explain… and then I have something else. Albus will come down to the Ministry tomorrow to give you some support, too."

"Thanks, love. That will be highly appreciated. I may be okay speaking to you all, you mean something to me, but I'm quite surely going to be tongue-tied tomorrow in front of all of these strangers."

"I thought so. I'll be with you in my thoughts, love."

"Thank you."

After the call Sirius and his parents started to talk about what they would be saying the next day at the press conference. Sirius feared the public eye. After all the years of being locked away and his status as an infamous killer and supposed right hand of Voldemort he wasn't looking forward to the kind of questions that awaited him. He knew well that the journalists weren't going to be easy with him.

"If I were you, I'd strictly refuse any questions regarding your life in Azkaban. You can state that the experience you made in there is not something you wish to share. And if they should keep asking you can always just say no comment," said Duncan.

"That's for sure. I won't say anything about that part…"

Duncan coached his son for another two hours, then they decided to call it a night and go to bed. Sirius found his old room untouched. One of the house-elves had made his bed and he quickly undressed, got into bed and pulled up the blankets. He missed Remus already. Sleep didn't come easy and when it came, it came with the usual amount of nightmares. Sirius transformed and Padfoot pushed away the blankets, curled into a ball and slept.

Adara went to wake him up early in the morning. When she saw the huge black dog on the bed her heart became heavy. She could easily guess why he had transformed. So she sat on the edge of the bed, before he could transform back and stroked the dog over his back, caressed the muzzle and scratched him behind the ears. Sirius awoke with a little start, but her scent was right, so he just whined.

"Good morning, love. Time to get up. Want me to leave?"

He nodded.

"Come down for breakfast, when you're ready. Your bath has been equipped with everything you need. And there are still lots of your clothes in the wardrobe. Best put on a set of proper business robes…"

Sirius licked his mother's hand, then she got up with one last stroke across his back and left the room. Sirius transformed and went to the bathroom to take a shower and brush his teeth. When he came back he perused his wardrobe. He got some boxers and socks out of a drawer, a t-shirt, a pair of black trousers and a set of black business robes. Everything looked like the day he left. He found some black shoes, which were clean and polished as if the house-elf had done it the night before. When he was dressed, he brushed his hair and picked up his wand to quickly shave and adjust the size of his clothes. Then he went down to the smaller breakfast room, where he met both his parents.

"Good morning," he said fairly cheerfully and kissed his mother.

"Good morning, dear," said Adara.

"Sorry for throwing you out, but I didn't have a stitch of clothing on my body when I transformed, Mum," Sirius apologised.

She laughed, but then stopped quickly and said:

"Why did you sleep as a dog, Sirius?"

"Nightmares," he explained.

"I thought so, but I wanted to hear you saying it. This will only help you temporarily, Sirius. You will need to work it out."

"I know, Mum. It's been better the two nights I slept next to Remus. I was able to sleep through the nightmares. But I needed my wits today, so I didn't feel like fighting with insomnia and the dreams."

"Okay, I'm fine with that."

Another few dozen owls had found their way to the Manor. Sirius just dropped all the letters on the breakfast table and left them there. He was in no mood to read them yet. He took his time to eat the hearty breakfast he had been served and then left with his parents to set out to the public for the first time since his imprisonment. Sirius felt like walking on thin ice. They apparated to the reception area of the Ministry, where they were greeted by Arthur Weasley's secretary who guided them up to the Minister's office. Sirius didn't know Arthur personally. He had met Bill and Charlie, when they had started Hogwarts. Sirius himself had been in fifth year when Bill had been in his first.

When they arrived at the Minister's antechamber, they were awaited by Albus Dumbledore who had come down from Hogwarts. He greeted Duncan and Adara warmly and asked:

"How delightful to see you both! How are you these days?"

"Hello, Albus! It's good to see you, too. We're fine and you can imagine that we've been very, very happy to hear our son being cleared," said Adara.

"Yes, I can. It's wonderful, and I'm really happy about the development of things. Sirius was always such a bright boy and he may have been a menace for many of my fellow teachers, but believe me, I've always been especially fond of him."

Duncan laughed. He didn't need to be reminded of all the owls they had received from Hogwarts.

"In fact, you and Arthur have some shared experience, he has twin sons at Hogwarts who are doing their utmost to step into Sirius' and James' shoes. I think they already met…"

Sirius grinned, too. He knew his parents had taken all the owls with sighs, but they had never tried to change him. He was an excellent student beyond his antics and his marks were consistently high, so they just accepted his pranks as part of his personality. They reprimanded him of course, but otherwise rarely punished him.

Arthur came out of his office to see them inside. He shook hands with them all and smiled. After Albus introduced them, they sat down around a coffee table on a few armchairs and a sofa.

"I've already met a few of your sons and your daughter, Mr Weasley. They are wonderful young people," said Sirius to start a conversation.

"Thank you, Mr Black. I would have thought that some of them use their time at Hogwarts not entirely for studying…"

"They are having a bit of fun beside the learning. I've seen them play Quidditch. I was a beater on the Gryffindor team myself, so it was nice to watch them."

"Yes, I've actually heard a few stories about you, Mr Black. My oldest sons were full of stories about you and James Potter."

"Bill and Charlie, right?"

"Yes, that's them. I wanted to talk to you personally, because I felt the need to apologise that we never, ever thought anything strange about the rat that was our pet for so long. It should have come to our mind that it was living strangely long. We never even lost a thought about that. When Percy was made a prefect the same year Ron started school we decided to give Percy his own owl and Ron got the rat as a pet. We might have thought, Percy had gotten a new rat in the meantime and the old one had died at some time. But there was never anything to indicate it was anything but a normal rat."

"It's certainly not your fault, Minister. I think, Ron was very upset, that his rat had turned out to be Peter Pettigrew, but I promised him an owl for Christmas. After all it's a bit my fault he's out of a pet."

"Still. We should have noticed something was odd."

"Don't worry, that's just how perfect the Animagus transformation is. One does become the animal and one mostly behaves like the animal one becomes."

"How does this feel? I find this fascinating," Arthur said.

"I find it hard to describe. I can still think human thoughts in my dog form, but I have much simpler emotions. And sometimes the 'dog thoughts' come forth and chasing a butterfly or following an interesting scent becomes much more important than thinking about human problems. It's become something of a way to escape for me."

Arthur nodded. He started to include the others into the conversation and finally picked up the folder he had in front of himself on the table. He handed it over to Sirius and said:

"This contains all of your papers, the adoption forms for your guardianship over Harry, your renewed apparition license and your Animagus registration forms. You can send the registration forms directly to the Department of Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures. That's where this information will be stored. The adoption form you can hand in to Ashley Grover. I understand you'll be meeting with him on Wednesday?"

"Yes, I will. Thank you, Minister."

"Oh, and please call me Arthur! And Harry will, of course always remain to be a part of our family and highly welcome at the Burrow if you will allow him to visit."

"Thank you, Arthur, please call me Sirius. Of course he'll come to see you, he and Ron are best friends after all, aren't they?"

"Yes, they are."

"Remus and I don't know yet, if we will take residence in either of our parents' houses or get our own. But wherever it may be, your children will be just as welcome there."

After a good hour of talking they moved on to the auditorium where the press conference was held. Adara took her son's hand in hers when they saw the mass of reporters. He held his breath.

"Oh Merlin, I'm scared, Mum," he whispered.

"I know, but just remain as calm as you can, dear, take your time to reply to a question and don't hesitate to tell them off if they try to rush you or if they ask something you don't want to answer."

He nodded. They sat down on several chairs behind a long table and Arthur stood to make a short, but official statement:

"Good morning, ladies and gentlemen.

As the Interim Minister of Magic, I'm here to give you the official Ministry position on the subject of the pardon for Mr Sirius Black.

After the capture of Peter Pettigrew we learned that the true murderer of the incident on November 1st 1981 was not Sirius Black but Peter Pettigrew himself. It didn't take more than the questioning of both of them to find out the truth. I have been involved personally, in as far as the Animagus form of Peter Pettigrew was a rat and he had lived in my very household as a pet for two of my sons for the time between winter 1982 until a few days ago. His ability to transform into the rat had made his escape possible. Sirius Black was the only one who knew about this fact. Several days before the Fidelius charm was to be cast he had renounced of becoming James and Lily Potter's secret keeper and they switched to Peter Pettigrew, not knowing that Pettigrew was already a Death Eater. We have now established all of these facts. As of this moment, Sirius Black is free. He has received all his documents a few moments ago. If you would like to direct your questions to him, I think he is ready to reply to them."

The reporters started to fire questions at them. Sirius replied slowly, thinking before talking and formulating his answers in short phrases. It seemed to him that there were hundreds of cameras and he was almost drowned in the light of their flashes.

"How was your life in Azkaban?" one reporter asked. Or maybe the question came from half a dozen of them.

"I'm sorry, but I am absolutely unwilling to speak about this subject," Sirius replied vehemently.

"How did you feel the night the Potters had died?" another asked.

Sirius rolled his eyes.

"Well, how would you feel, if you'd have to look at the lifeless bodies of your best and closest friends? I was out of my mind."

"Is it really true you were put under Cruciatus by a Ministry employee?"

"Yes."

"Would you care to elaborate?"

"He first tried to retain me through the Imperius curse. As an Auror I am well trained to throw that one off, so he tried it with Cruciatus. This in spite of the fact that I was in no state to go anywhere, let alone apparate away."

"Is it true that one of the Aurors who arrested you was your sister?"

"Yes."

"Have you seen her again since then?"

"No. She's currently abroad."

"How will you approach her when you meet her again?"

"My sister did her duty as an Auror. I would not have done anything different if I had to arrest her. I don't know how we will get along when we meet. It depends on her acceptance of my clearance."

"We heard you wrote a letter to someone in Hogwarts that Pettigrew was alive and at the school. Who was that?"

Sirius looked at Albus. He did not want to have Remus pulled into the press hassle, where the danger of exposing him as a werewolf would be too great, so Albus stepped up and said:

"That was me. One of our teachers talked to the boy who owned the rat and brought them to me. Only after that we contacted Sirius who had stayed in the Forbidden Forest."

"What are you going to do now, Mr Black?"

"I don't know yet. I will need some time to get used to being free, I guess," Sirius replied.

"How much will you ask from the Ministry as a compensation?"

"I have not decided yet."

The questions went on and on and two hours later Sirius felt like a wet towel. Many of the questions were also directed at his parents, some at Dumbledore. Sirius finally said he'd only accept one more question and one reporter asked:

"Where are you going to stay now, Mr Black?"

"That's not decided yet, either. I need to look for a house."

After that Sirius stood up and left the room. The others followed him and Arthur asked:

"Would you accept an invitation to lunch at the Leaky Cauldron? I have taken the liberty of reserving a private dining room."

"Yes, thank you, I accept," Sirius said and looked around at his parents. They nodded.

When they arrived at the Leaky Cauldron, Molly was waiting for them already. Arthur kissed her lightly on the lips and then introduced his guests.

"Molly, you don't know Adara and Duncan Black yet, I believe?"

"No, not yet. I'm very pleased to meet you!"

Molly shook hands with the Blacks and then Arthur introduced Sirius, too.

"And this is Sirius. He will be Harry's guardian. Together with Remus Lupin."

"Pleased to meet you, too, Sirius. Please call me Molly."

"I'm happy to meet you, Molly. I've already heard some nice things about you from your children. And Harry. And Hermione."

While they placed themselves around the table, Molly explained:

"I took the liberty to order a menu. I hope this will meet your tastes. – So you've met my children, Sirius? I do hope they behaved properly."

"They did. I had nothing to complain, but then I may not really be the best to judge proper behaviour."

"Well, I think, I still remember how shocked I was when I read some of my oldest son's letters. He was following your antics quite intensively, you must know and reported many of them back to me. Totally innocently, of course."

Sirius blushed.

"Not that we did everything so your son had something to write home, Molly," he said with a lopsided grin.

"Oh, he certainly enjoyed himself. He's not the troublemaker in my family, not too much anyway…"

"I heard he was head boy?"

"Yes. I'm quite proud of him, really. Currently he's in Egypt, working as a curse breaker for Gringotts there."

"And I know who the troublemakers in your family are," Sirius said, laughing, "but they're fine boys, Molly, really! They will go their own way, but I'm not afraid for them. They also might become very successful in their chosen career, even if they do not look for a career at the Ministry."

Molly sighed.

"I certainly hope so. I know they are not evil or bad, but if only they'd take life a bit more serious."

"I think they take life and their jokes very serious."

Duncan laughed.

"That would be my son who can see something like that. Molly, if you get as many owls for your twins as we got for Sirius' antics then you really get many. I'd say an owl per week was about average," said Adara.

Molly's eyes went big.

"Sirius! How did you manage school?"

"Oh, I studied. I just didn't study out in the open. Couldn't lose my reputation, now could I? So I usually studied in the dorm. James, Peter and Remus knew that I worked just as hard as they did. I just liked to have my fun."

"Then you are one amazing person!"

"Thank you. Actually, I think, I was blessed. My parents passed me the brain to keep information fairly easily and I was curious. Our jokes and pranks often demanded a bit of research, so we learned something out of them, too. I was good at Potions and I was interested in Muggle chemistry, so sometimes I combined the two to experiment a bit. It was learning with a fun outcome. And of course we had Remus, the most devious prankster possible."

"I always thought there was more to this little fellow than he let on," said Albus.

Sirius grinned.

"He is an expert in hiding as you know. He always found ways not to be detected."

"I will have to tease him with this knowledge," Albus smiled.

"Remus? Is that Remus Lupin, your Defence against the Dark Arts teacher?" asked Molly.

"Yes, Molly, that's him. He's really an excellent teacher and as far as I know even the Slytherin students like him. That's saying something," Albus confirmed.

"Yes, I'd agree on that one," Arthur said.

Molly turned to Sirius.

"So you and Remus Lupin are friends?"

"We're best friends and lovers."

"Oh. I take it that's not recent?"

"No, we've been together for a long time. Since fifth year at Hogwarts."

"That's nice. Now you're together again?"

"Yes."

"The few letters I get from my children are quite full of him. They really seem to like him."

"He's probably the best teacher we've had in this subject for the past 20 or so years, Molly. I have some wonderful teachers on the staff who work together very well, but for some reason I don't seem to be lucky with our Defence teachers. I do hope, Remus lasts. He's good. A gifted teacher who can pass the subject to his students. He's able to build weaker students up and gives them confidence. He's able to be demanding in a way that stronger students feel challenged and get an urge to meet the challenge," Albus told them.

"That is high praise, Albus," Arthur said.

"I know, but he deserves it. Remus is a very quiet and sometimes even shy person, but in front of children and in a classroom he grows a lot taller and stronger."

"Sirius, did I understand this right, that you will be Harry's guardian now? So he doesn't have to go back to these horrible Muggles?" Molly asked.

"Yes, that's right. Remus and I jointly."

"Do you already have plans for Christmas?"

"We'll stay at Hogwarts until the 26th December and then probably head to my parents."

"Could we invite you for New Year's Eve then?" Molly asked.

"I'll have to ask Remus, so, if you don't mind, I'll give you word in a few days, okay? We also want to include Remus' father in our plans, he's all alone."

"That's perfectly fine with me. An owl will do."

They talked through lunch and Molly and Arthur did their best to put Sirius at ease after the stressful morning. Duncan and Adara noticed, that they succeeded quite well in this task. Adara leaned close to her husband and whispered:

"Molly and Arthur must be wonderful parents, don't you think?"

"Yes, I think so, too. I'm very happy with Arthur being the Interim Minister, he'll do a great job."

Finally they parted ways. Albus returned to Hogwarts and Sirius went back home to his parents to pack a few more clothes and pick up the letters he had left on the breakfast table. He returned to Hogwarts just when the last classes were out and met Minerva on the way to Remus' rooms. She stopped him and said:

"You're bringing the mail system down here, Sirius! You'd better go and collect those letters in the teachers lounge! There are buckets full!"

"Oh god! I hate that!"

"I know you do, but you won't get around looking through that flood. Don't throw the negative ones away, we'd like to analyse the letters, so just put them aside, okay?"

"Minerva! What do you want with the stuff? I'd just as well throw them ALL away."

"I know, but that wouldn't be right."

So Sirius spent the evening sitting on the rug, leaning against Remus' legs, reading his letters, while Remus worked through a big pile of essays and tests. They were staying in the teacher's lounge and enjoyed the company of Filius Flitwick, Edith Sprout and Yolanda Hooch.

Over some of the letters Sirius just shook his head.

"What more than **evidence** do some people need? Listen to this, Remus: blah, blah, blah… you are a dark wizard in my opinion and you'll always be one. They should have put you straight back to Azkaban…"

"On the pile to the left, Siri, and forget about them. Actually we should even consider answering those letters…" said Remus calmly.

"Most of those here come anonymous. There are what? Eleven or so now? And only one of them has an address."

"This is really unbelievable. I really think those people need to get their priorities set straight," Yolanda remarked.

"Once opinionated, always opinionated, Yolanda. You can't change people's attitudes. I know, believe me!" Remus said.

"You would," she confirmed.

"Sometimes I manage to feed something into a mind that will help them to change their opinions, but it rarely happens," Remus added and returned to his essay.

After a while he asked Sirius:

"This is Hermione's werewolf essay. Do you want to read it?"

"How creepy is it?"

"Quite. Just had to get rid of the goose bumps on my arms," Remus tried to joke.

"Pass it on!"

Sirius read Hermione's essay first, before looking for Remus' mark. He was quite impressed.

"Did her work thoroughly, didn't she?"

"She always does. And in a very short time, too."

"You've given her a good mark, too…"

"Extra credit. Snape set them the essay when he took the class after my second full moon here. He hasn't offered to substitute anymore. But he probably gave them the essay in the hope that someone notices my symptoms. To his great dismay the Gryffindor third years really told him off and defended me."

Flitwick looked up.

"That would sound like him! I think he'd love to tell everyone about your lycanthropy, Remus," he said.

"He knows I'd leave if he does it."

"Well, there's nothing but hoping he keeps his mouth shut. I don't think we could get all the parents to agree to having you as a teacher, even if many wouldn't mind," Edith remarked.

"How does Dumbledore keep him quiet, anyway, Remus? Do you know?" Sirius asked.

"No idea. But I suppose with the small matter of him having been a Death Eater."

"Do the school governors know about it?" Sirius asked on.

"Yes. They checked my records at the Werewolf Registry and found that I'm clean. Then they demanded to know the security measures and that was it. They accepted me, since I already spent my seven school years here. Actually I was quite amazed, how easy they were. But Malfoy isn't among the bunch anymore, so Albus can handle them far easier."

"Malfoy? Lucius Malfoy? HE was a school governor?" Sirius asked.

"Oh yes. Thought he could influence Albus' work in his evil ways," Flitwick confirmed.

"This evil git? Oh my. But then we might do something about it, Remus. Out you to selected students maybe, so the reaction would be mellowed considerably, if Severus outs you. He shouldn't have that power over you, love."

"I'll think about it. He's getting bolder in any case. I have to learn to know my students a bit better to know who would be comfortable with it and keep the secret. I suppose, Hermione already guessed. She's very perceptive. I'll do some classes on werewolves – my way. Then I'll fairly soon see who can accept it."

"Meanwhile **I** can substitute for you so you'll get rest after the full moons. There's no hurry for me to look for paid work…"

"That's a good idea, I suppose you could suggest that to Albus."

Sirius yawned. He was through with most of the letters, but there were still more owls that rapped on the windows.

And they continued to swoop down on Hogwarts for several days. On Wednesday Sirius returned to the Ministry, his adoption forms for Grover filled out and signed, and the registration form for the Animagus registry, filled out and signed as well. He asked the witch at the reception, if she could forward it to the right office and she promised she would.

"Once I find out where it needs to be sent to…" she mumbled.

"All I know is it has to be in the Department of Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures…" Sirius offered.

"Oh, thanks, I'll send it there, they'll know where to stuff it."

"Could you kindly give Ashley Grover a call? I have an appointment with him."

"That would be on the third floor, along the corridor to the right, there's another small reception, please report there, Mr Black."

"Thank you."

Sirius went up and soon sat in Grover's spacious office. It was packed with folders and files about hanging cases.

"Good afternoon, Mr Black. Come in! Come in! – Cup of tea? "

"Yes, please – thank you."

Grover went to the door and opened it again.

"You're welcome," he said to Sirius, then: "Miranda, could you please have the house-elf bring tea?"

"Yes, sir! Just a minute!"

"Thank you!"

Grover cleared a corner of the coffee table and put down Sirius' folder.

"Well, let's get right to business. I suppose you got the papers through Arthur?"

"Yes, thank you, all is perfect. Here's our forms for the adoption. Harry wants to come live with us as soon as possible. He's really unwelcome at his Muggle relatives, so it's understandable."

"Good. – Ah, Sinni, thank you for the tea. Could you just put the tray down here on the table? Thank you! That will be all."

Grover poured a cup of tea for both and Sirius added sugar and a drop of cream. He handed Grover the forms.

"Very well. I'll have this processed immediately, won't take long, since it only needs my signature and a stamp from the Department of Youth. They're a subgroup of my department. – Now, on to the compensation…"

"Well, I thought I would have made about 23'000 Galleons a year being an Auror. That times eleven years and nine months for my imprisonment would be 271'000 Galleons. Plus some extra I rounded it to 300'000 Galleons."

Grover did swallow a little.

"Three yearly instalments of 100'000 Galleons okay?"

"Welcome."

"Well, it's a large sum, but considering that you're asking for only about one year's worth more for your salary I think it is reasonable. Pay rises and rank promotions included we'll add a fourth instalment of 50'000. I've got that noted down and you can expect the first instalment being transferred to your Gringotts account in the next days. Would you give me your number?"

"711."

"Fine. Noted that and will have this signed by Arthur today."

"Thank you, sir! For all of your un-bureaucratic help."

"It was a grave error of justice. I couldn't let this lie low. We'll remain in your debt, Mr Black, I'm well aware that no money will bring you back the twelve years you lost. And the horrors you went through."

"I'm still glad. That will be all, I suppose?"

"Yes, that's all. – Do you have any plans?"

"Sit out the storm of mail and then look for a house maybe, but I think I'll stay with my lover at Hogwarts most of the time, so maybe I look for something in Hogsmeade for the school term."

"Good luck then. You shouldn't have a problem of finding something around there."

Sirius returned to Hogwarts. He didn't have long to wait for Remus, who came to his rooms after his last class.

"How was it, love?" he asked immediately.

"I'll get 350'000 Galleons," Sirius said and grinned.

Remus gasped – then swallowed.

"That's a lot!"

"Well, if I had stayed on as an Auror, then I would have made about 270'000 in the time I was imprisoned. So it's already something the Ministry owed me. I added 30'000 and Grover offered an extra 50'000."

"Wow. – What now?"

"I was thinking – I might look for a really nice cottage in Hogsmeade… I don't know if I could stay here with you…"

"You'd be less confined in any case. And I could floo in from there. The fireplace in the teacher's lounge is open for limited connection. Or use a permanent Portkey."

"Then you'd move in with me if I found some nice little house?"

"Of course."

"I'll start looking for one soon. Just want to sit out the load of mail and wait until the public forgets me again."

"You'll remain famous, Siri. Nothing you can do about. You'll stay in the history book for being the first prisoner to ever get out of Azkaban for one. And you're a charismatic person, so you're not quickly forgotten."

Sirius started to look for the house. While he was busy looking at fitting objects, someone offered him a lot of land, slightly outside of Hogsmeade. He went to look at it and found it perfect.

"But how long will it take to get a house finished?"

"About a month. You need to have an architect first. Once you've decided what you want you can get it done quickly."

Sirius looked around.

"The setting would be perfect."

He bought the land. The seller gave him a few recommendations for architects and Sirius contacted some of them until he found one who seemed to meet his own tastes. He wanted a cottage style house with four bedrooms, two bathrooms on the upper floor and one on the ground floor, a fairly large living room and kitchen, a dining room, a study for Remus and a spare room for himself. And he needed a solid basement, just in case, and an attic, for good measure. Sirius knew how Remus was, he never threw anything away.

There was enough land to have a large garden, which they would enclose with a wall. The front yard would just get a fence, then a short path would lead to a front porch. In the back of the house, along the dining room, living room and study would be another porch, both of them covered, so they would have a balcony on the upper floor, and on both sides.

"Remus, it's going to be such a nice house! I've seen the finished plans today and the architect says they will have it done at the latest at the beginning of February."

"That sounds great, love! I'm really looking forward to it. What does Harry say?"

"He thinks it's great, too, because he'll have his own room and all. I'll have to take him shopping for his furniture," Sirius said.

"In the meantime, do you have an idea for a Christmas present for him?"

"Yes, I do. His broom was rather destroyed by the Whomping Willow, so I thought I'd make up for thirteen years of Christmas and birthday presents and buy him the newest top fancy broom. He's a seeker, so he needs a fast one. Who better than me to give him one, anyway?"

"Wow. That's a great idea. I'm sure he'll love that!" Remus said and whistled.

"He'll be out of his mind! I hope he hasn't gotten one yet."

"It's too cold and their next match is against Ravenclaw, some time in February, so I don't think you need to tell him. You might prevent it by telling him, that he should tell you if he intends to spend over a certain amount of Galleons."

"That's a splendid idea. I'll do just that. I'll bring it up when I show him the plans for the house tonight."

Sirius went up to the Gryffindor common room after dinner and charmed the Fat Lady to open the door for him. Sirius had the plans for the house under his arm and looked for Harry. He found him next to Hermione at their usual table.

"Hi!" he said.

"Oh, hi, Sirius! What's this?" Hermione gestured at the rolls of parchment.

"The plans for the new house. Want to see them?"

"Oh yes!" both exclaimed.

Sirius unrolled the plans on the table. They looked at them and saw the house drawn and the floor plans. Sirius pointed to one of the rooms to the back yard.

"This will be your room, Harry. And this one will be ours. These two will be guest rooms. I'll take you furniture shopping on one of your next Hogsmeade weekends, Harry."

"Wow. I can't believe it. I'm going to live with you for real now, am I?" Harry asked.

Sirius hugged him.

"Yes, Harry, now it's for real. You know that Remus and I are not going to let you down. You might not be so safe with us, but we'll be there for you and you'll have a lot more fun, that's for sure. And if we need security, you will be able to floo to Hogwarts. We've already arranged a limited access. The lot is already charmed to be unplottable, too. Remus is going to use a permanent Portkey, which will only work from our house to Hogwarts and you will be able to use the floo to Albus' office if need be."

"What's a Portkey?" Hermione asked.

"That is any object that is charmed to transport someone to a pre-defined area and at a pre-defined time. Permanent Portkeys are subject to Ministry regulations, we're currently getting the permission to create one for Remus. We'll either use a ring or a bracelet. Something that can be activated by a simple movement or spell. This will allow Remus to live with me outside of the castle."

"Then Snape should be happy, he won't have to be afraid of Remus anymore," Hermione said.

"So you know he's afraid of Remus?"

"I'm sure. In any case he loathes Remus."

"Oh, he does, that's for sure. So you guessed what Remus is?"

"Yes."

"And you're not afraid of him?"

"Oh no. Wherever he goes on the full moon nights, I didn't notice him so far, so I don't think I'll notice him, even though I know he's a werewolf."

"Good. – I'm very glad about that, because he really likes you, Hermione."

"I know. And he gave me top marks for my werewolf essay. We talked a bit about it."

"Does he know that you know? Well, he thinks you know, but does he know?"

"I didn't exactly tell him, but he might have guessed."

"Okay. I have become very careful about that. It's always Remus' secret to tell, so I never tell anyone out of my own will, even when I feel that the other person is not uncomfortable knowing. I would always ask his permission first. So if you get the opportunity to talk to him, just tell him you know, and that you're still comfortable. He hates scaring people."

"He's always so kind! It must be awful to have to gain other people's trust so hard!"

"It is, Hermione! It's something he's fought for his whole life and it has never paid off. He's perfectly happy now."

"No wonder. He's got you back and he's got the job and he likes his job," Hermione said with a grin.

"Spot on, everything. – Now, Harry, there's something I wanted to tell you still. Don't think I want to control you, and I know you're very reasonable, but if you plan on spending more than 50 Galleons on one single item, would you please tell me, before you get it?"

"I hardly ever spend more than a couple of Galleons, Siri."

"Okay. So if you do want to buy something bigger, you either tell me or Remus, then we're happy. And you don't have to pay for your school supplies and clothes anymore, that will be my job from now on."

"Okay, Sirius."

"Very well. So I'll let you work. What were you doing?"

"Some homework for Divination," Hermione said with a frown.

"Hated it, myself. Totally useless stuff, at least the way Trelawney teaches. I always thought she was a fraud!" Sirius said, much to Hermione's delight.

She threw a triumphant glance at Harry, who shrugged.

"What? I agreed with you, that she's probably a fraud," he said.

She grinned again. Sirius left them and returned to Remus who had finally worked through all of his essays and tests. And sighed.

"Finished that pile, just to get the next one tomorrow…"

"Poor sweetheart," Sirius consoled him.

"Well, your poor sweetheart could do with a nice tumble where usually no parchment would be found…"

"Are you suggesting we take a hop in the bed and enjoy a quick shag?" Sirius asked.

"No, I'm suggesting we take a hop in the bed and enjoy a nice **long **shag."

"Sometimes you can be awfully blunt, you know that?"

Remus grinned. And then teased:

"Well, there's no point in being subtle with you, you're too dense to catch subtlety. Therefore I'm going for blunt, otherwise…"

"…otherwise you talk for hours and we never get to bed," Sirius laughed.

He pulled Remus close for a kiss. Remus snuggled even closer and held Sirius around his waist. Sirius pushed forward with his tongue, to gently stroke over Remus' lips, then demanded entry into Remus' mouth, which was granted quickly. They never stopped kissing, but started pulling off each other's clothes. Sirius buried his hands into Remus' hair, and tickled him lightly behind the ear. Remus giggled into his mouth and then pulled free. He took Sirius by the hand and the two went into the bedroom, where Sirius found himself being tossed on the bed. Just a second later, Remus was all over him. Sirius purred.

"Mmm, that's how I really love you most, my sweet. With your mouth full of something me," he said.

"Get too much fabric in, if I do that now. It looks like we're slightly overdressed for that kind of fun…" Remus retorted.

"Well, you're so good at Charms, get these clothes off…" Sirius mumbled.

"Why always me?" Remus muttered.

He accioed his wand and used a disrobing charm. Their clothes vanished, rematerialised and were neatly folded on a chair. Remus looked very smug and Sirius was quite impressed.

"I knew you were good…" Sirius said.

He got no reply, as Remus was already buried in the crook of Sirius' neck and nibbled his way down Sirius' torso.

"Aww, that's just so good, love."

Remus just looked up for a moment, then moved down and licked Sirius' cock, which hardened fast. Then he looked at Sirius again and said:

"I want your cock inside of me! You have no idea, how I've been missing you, sweetheart."

"I'll do my best, love… don't know how long I'll be able to pleasure you."

"That doesn't matter. I want you to get trained again, and once you have to start again."

Sirius pulled Remus up and kissed him. Remus rolled off him and turned on his back. Sirius took over and ran his hands slowly over Remus' body. He kept kissing his lover and started sucking on his earlobes, then went on and kissed and nibbled on Remus' throat. Remus pulled him closer and wrapped one of his legs around Sirius, who slowly went down along Remus' body, untangling himself from the leg around his waist. Remus moaned softly and felt his nerves working overtime. Since they had come together again, Sirius had been most reluctant to be the dominant partner. Remus had been used to share everything equally with Sirius and he did like to just take sometimes, so now he felt really well, as Sirius closed his mouth over Remus' cock. He shivered in bliss, as Sirius started sucking, licking and nipping the hard flesh. With as much control as Remus could muster, he thrust into Siri's mouth. Both moaned. Sirius curled one hand around the base of Remus' cock, so he couldn't go in too deep. Siri's other hand reached down and caressed Remus' balls, then went beyond and finally reached the tight ring of muscles. He teased it lightly, then left it, to have Remus suck on his fingers. Once they were wet enough, he pushed them inside, slowly and carefully, preparing Remus.

"Siri! Come on in! Please!" Remus whined.

Sirius looked up, let go of Remus' cock and asked:

"Would you mind turning around?"

"Not at all…"

Remus turned and hoisted himself up on his knees. He pulled a pillow close and turned his head to the side, so he could still see what Sirius did. Sirius scooted close on his knees and positioned himself to enter Remus.

"Oh yes, Siri! Yes, come on, deeper!"

Sirius held Remus around his waist and pulled him up so he had Remus in his lap. It was easy to move now, Remus reached with one arm behind himself and held Sirius close. He rested his head on Sirius' shoulder. They soon found a rhythm and Sirius pumped Remus' cock while he thrust into his lover. With the other hand he still held Remus close and teased his nipples. He continued thrusting inside, increasing in speed as he reached his completion. Sirius bit down in Remus' shoulder, then came with a shudder. Remus didn't take much longer and both tumbled down on the bed. Sirius pulled Remus into his arms. Both were still breathing hard and catching their breath. Remus gasped for air and turned around in Sirius' arms, to be able to kiss him.

"So good, love…" he mumbled between kisses.

Sirius returned the kisses. Then they decided to call it an early night and pulled up the duvets. Remus extinguished the light with a flick of his hand and was fast asleep right after that.


	5. Happy Christmas and a Happy New Year

**5. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year**

On one of the next days, Sirius flooed to Diagon Alley, to check on his Gringotts accounts. It was the first time he went through the wizarding part of London since he had been cleared. He was quite scared to be out in the open. Most people only greeted him, though. He tried to stay calm, went into the bank and presented his key.

"I'd like to receive a statement of account, if you please. And I need to go to this vault and this one," he said and gave the goblin the key to the Potter vault.

"Do you need the statement for both vaults? They have both been untouched for a very long period of time."

"Yes, please."

"Well, that will be fine, we will see that it gets put together, while you visit the vaults."

"Thank you."

Sirius followed the next goblin down to the vaults. He went to his own first, filled a fairly large bag with money and then went on to the Potters' vault. He had to look around for the boxes, but finally found them and took all photo albums out of them to bring them to Harry. Then he collected his statements and left the bank. At first he went to Quality Quidditch Supplies and got the broom for Harry. The latest best on the market was the Firebolt, which Harry had been admiring during his summer vacation. Sirius bought one and asked:

"Could you possibly have this sent to Hogwarts for Christmas?"

"Yes, certainly. The broom is for a kid?"

"My godson. He's Gryffindor's seeker."

"Would you like to have a note attached?"

"Do you have cards available? Otherwise I'll get one and bring it back here."

"We do, just a few, they're all Quidditch related, of course."

Sirius smiled.

"That will only please Harry for sure!"

"He's one lucky boy…"

"I'm not so sure. This is 13 years worth of birthday and Christmas presents," Sirius said in a low voice.

He wrote a quick note on a card, which the salesman added to the broom.

"Okay, to whom will this need to be addressed?"

"Harry Potter."

"Oh! Fine, it will be sent in time to reach Hogwarts for Christmas."

"Thank you."

Sirius paid a considerable amount of money for the Firebolt, then he bought a Nimbus 2001 for himself. The next stop was at Flourish & Blotts, to look a bit around and find some reading material, then he went to see his Mum at her second hand book shop. He found it and entered. The bell on the door tinkled, and Adara looked out from behind two bookshelves.

"Oh, hello, Sirius! Finally ventured out here?"

"Hi, Mum. Yes, I needed to get bank statements, Harry's Christmas present and some other stuff."

He hugged and kissed her. She was about a head shorter than he was, looked up at her son and said:

"Slowly you start to look better, my dear! How did your meeting with Grover turn out?"

"Quick and painless. I asked for 300'000 and they're giving me 350'000 – in four yearly instalments," Sirius said.

"Good. Not that anyone could pay you for twelve years lost."

"I know and they know, too. Grover actually said exactly the same. He hardly flinched, when I said the amount. It would have come to just about 80'000 more than I would have earned in the meantime as an Auror."

"Then they got off quite easy, I'd say. – I've had an owl from Polaris. She doesn't know about you yet. I'll tell her when I owl her back. I was quite proud of you when you handled that reporter so well, who asked you about her."

"Tell her, that Remus still uses her crystal ball as a paperweight," Sirius said with a smile.

She grinned.

"Is that all he uses a crystal ball for?"

"He never thought much of Divination. You should see how he always takes a wide berth around Trelawney. Positively avoids her. You know he never took the subject."

Now Adara laughed.

"Yes, I can understand that, she really is quite a pest."

"Especially since she seems to have it in for Harry. She constantly predicts his untimely end."

"Oh, she's done that forever, Minerva once told me, that whenever she has a class after Trelawney, when Trelawny has them the first time, then the students are usually quite upset. So right now it's Harry? This is a guarantee that he'll survive for a long time, believe me. So far none of the people she predicted untimely ends have died."

"As far as Harry said, that's what Minerva told him. Even joked that he didn't have to hand in his homework, should he have died before it was due."

Both grinned.

"Minerva can't stand Trelawney. She's too down to earth. Want some tea?"

"Would be lovely, thanks. – Anything you can recommend to read? I have a lot of free time right now."

"Lucky you. Yes, I have a few recommendations. Fiction or non-fiction?"

"Either or, actually."

Adara accioed the tea cups and tapped the kettle, which whistled immediately. She poured it into a teapot and added the tea leaves. Once the tea was steeped she poured two cups. They sat down at her desk and Adara looked for some books that might interest her son. After a while he had a small pile on the desk and picked a few of them. Then she remembered something.

"Here's one that Remus might be interested in. It's about a few more obscure dark creatures. He might have met some of them, but there are a couple of very rare ones in here."

"I'm sure he'll love it, Mum, thanks."

Sirius spent a happy hour with his mother. Slowly they found back to their easy companionship they had always shared. Sirius reduced the books to miniature size and pushed the bag into the pockets of his robes.

"You'll need to shop for clothes, Siri! You're putting Duncan's business to shame," Adara said.

"I know, not quite fashionable anymore, eh? Well, one of the next days I'll do that and I'll pass by at his shop. Will I need an appointment, or is he usually around?"

Adara laughed.

"Well, you might want to give him a call, so he can put you into the hands of one of the salespersons."

"Will do."

"And Sirius, best do it on a Saturday, so you can bring Remus, too."

"He needs some new robes, too, eh? I know, but he's hard to be gifted!"

"We're his in-laws, Sirius, that should surely count as someone who can give him some new robes!"

"I think so, too. I'll see what he thinks."

Sirius went back to Hogwarts. He apparated to the gates and took out his new broom to fly the rest of the way. It was early afternoon now and he decided to owl his father quickly, to tell him, he'd like to come by the shop on Saturday.

* * *

Taking Remus clothes shopping had not been so difficult when they were first together, Sirius thought. He had told him the evening before, that they were expected at Wizarding Fashion, his father's Diagon Alley boutique.

"Come on, Moony, it can't hurt to get a couple of new sets of robes, now can it?" Sirius whined.

"I don't need anything, Siri! I'll gladly come along with you, but count me out for a fashion trip."

Sirius sighed.

"You're more stubborn than the most stubborn mule, you know that, Moony?"

"I call it stoic, not stubborn," Remus said unfazed.

"Call it what you want, it's still stubborn. You take perfect care of your clothes, but even the best care does not make them holding up forever…"

Finally Sirius gave up. But he knew, given the right robes were put in front of Remus, he'd get him to accept something new. They arrived at the shop shortly before noon and Duncan welcomed them. He led them to an assistant in the shop and introduced them.

"This is Constance, she's our chief fashion consultant here. She'll be taking care of you two. Connie, these are my son Sirius and his partner Remus Lupin."

"Pleased to meet you, gentlemen! Please follow me to our showroom."

"Have fun!" Duncan wished them and returned to his office.

Sirius and Remus were shown the newest creations of the Black Designers. There was a small team of creative tailors working for Duncan, which designed all of their robes. The two got to see the latest creations, some for everyday wear, some business and some dress robe styles. The first round were everyday and casual robes. Sirius looked at the models and Connie gave him the fabric samples from which he could choose. There was a style he really liked, with long sleeves, a simple collar, cut almost straight down, to be worn with a belt. The robes looked very comfortable and warm. Connie explained they were tailored from the finest wools. After looking through several styles, Sirius decided on this and another, slightly wider set and ordered both of them in ice blue.

"And what would you say we get for Remus? Rather the beige or the soft olive?"

"Definitely the beige for this style. It's more elegant, even for day wear."

"Remus is a teacher up at Hogwarts, so I think he should also have something a bit darker. Like this brown one?"

"That would look lovely. Let me just take the measurements, so we can get you the robes to try on. In the meantime, you might want to look at the more business like styles?"

"Yes, please, that would be fine."

"Sirius!" hissed Remus in protest, but Connie already asked him to lift his arm and measuring tapes were set in motion to buzz all around him. Connie filled the measurements into the spaces of a form and noted down Remus' name and address. He sighed and looked daggers at Sirius who just smiled.

The next round were business robes. While the set Sirius had worn to the Ministry had still been in perfect condition, it was terribly out of fashion, so they looked at the latest styles and Sirius chose two very elegant robes, consisting of black trousers, a white shirt and robes which were buttoned up at the front, with a casual looking collar. The robes were black as well. Connie took notes, then looked at the two men and had the models present the dress robes. This time the robes were presented in several colours. Most were of a very flowing style, wide and buttoned only like polo shirts. Some had collars, some had none, most had long sleeves opening wide to the end. Remus pointed a silvery blue one out for Sirius.

"That one there, love. You'd look great in it," he said.

"Excellent suggestion, Mr Lupin, I fully agree with you," said Connie and had the model stay behind.

Sirius went closer and felt the fabric. It was raw silk, quite heavy and falling wonderfully. He nodded.

"Yes, I think I'll have that one."

"That's a very good choice, Mr Black. I'll have it fitted for you."

"Maybe with an extra inch or two, I do intend to gain a little weight still…" Sirius suggested.

"Oh, there's no need for that with our dress robes. They adjust to your body magically. The moment you put them on they feel your body and adjust. Would you like to try this one?"

"Yes, I'd love to."

"Rupert, bring the set for Mr Black to try, please."

The model retreated to the changing room and returned with the set he just presented to Sirius. Connie looked at Remus and asked:

"And you, sir? I think this golden brown one would fit you perfectly. It's the same raw silk we've used for Mr Black's robes."

"I don't think…" Remus started.

"Oh yes, Moony, give in and try them, they look perfect!" Sirius interrupted him, before he vanished to the changing room to try the robes he had just received.

Connie winked at the model, who vanished and came back, bringing Remus the robes. Remus sighed and gave up. He knew when he was defeated and it would have looked very childish of him to put up more resistance.

Sirius came out of the changing room, wearing the business robes. He twirled around in front of Remus and Connie. Both were quite pleased with the sight.

"You look human again, Padfoot," he said.

"Very nice, Mr Black, I quite agree. With your looks you could become one of our models actually…"

"Don't think my father would like that, though," Sirius said with a smirk.

"No, I don't either. Do you have plans now, sir? Maybe join your father in the business?"

"I don't think so. Luckily he doesn't expect me to. I was never brought up as the heir of the company. And I'm very glad about it, as I have no feeling at all for business."

"You were an Auror, weren't you?" Connie asked.

"Yes, but I'm afraid those days are over, too. I'm still taking a while off and just enjoy being able and allowed to live! I won't have to do anything for a long time, if ever and I don't intend to care for much more than my lover, my godson and our house and garden. – Well, that one's just fine. On to the everyday robes."

Both blue robes looked very nice on Sirius, too, but it was the dress robes, which took Remus' breath away. He looked at Sirius and whispered:

"Gods, you're beautiful, Siri…"

"Thanks, love! They feel absolutely gorgeous, go, try yours on!" Sirius beamed at Remus.

And only two minutes later he was totally taken by the sight Remus presented. He looked ethereal in the almost honey golden robes. Sirius pulled him in front of the huge mirror and stood behind him, still in his silvery blue robes.

"So, what do you think?"

"Quite the dashing pair you are, gentlemen…" Connie said.

"We both look about ten years younger," Remus commented.

"We do. So, you still don't think you'll take them?"

"I don't have anything to say anyway, I strongly suspect, so, yes, I'll take them, Siri."

"That's my Moony. Just wait until you have the next official function at the school and you'll just get everyone swooning, when they see you."

"Oh shut it, Siri, as if I were out for that!" Remus protested weakly.

Sirius kissed him. He told Connie to put everything together and charge him whatever percentage his father offered him. She asked:

"Do I send it all to Hogwarts?"

"That's the safest. It will still take a while until our house will be finished."

"Fine."

The two young men went to talk to Duncan for a moment. He looked at Sirius and said:

"I'm very happy to see that every time I meet you these days you're looking better, my son."

"I start to feel better, Dad, and I suppose the food at Hogwarts is doing wonders."

"That's very good to hear. And how are the house plans doing?"

"Great, they have done all the preliminary work, next month the house will be built and during the first part of January it's supposed to be fitted."

"Are you going to move in all year round, Remus?"

"Yes. I'll have a permanent Portkey. We just got the permission from the Ministry to create one."

"Which is our next stop, a ring or a bracelet for Remus to wear to put the spell on. It needs to be activated, whenever he wants to go to Hogwarts or come home."

"How does this work then?"

"I just need to touch the ring and say the password. And I can reset the password in intervals."

"Lovely."

* * *

The next full moon came up and Severus brought Remus his potion. Sirius looked at the brew and asked:

"Severus, I'd really like to learn to brew the wolfsbane potion, would you be willing to teach me?"

Naturally Severus didn't look forward, but he thought he might be getting out of the arrangement he had with Dumbledore if Black would be the one to brew Lupin's potion. So he told him:

"Come by next month – I make it two days before he needs the first dose."

"I will. Thank you."

For the week before the moon Remus drank his daily dose of the potion. On the 25th November he came from his last lessons and looked awfully tired. Luckily it was a Friday, so he didn't have to worry about missing classes on the next day, he'd have two days to rest. Remus spell locked the doors to his rooms with three different locking charms. He had accepted that Sirius stayed with him, though he was a bit afraid. But he did trust Snape's potion and Sirius would be Padfoot anyway. The transformation seemed to be a bit smoother, even though it was still painful for Remus. But Sirius thought that the potion soothed Moony a good deal. He had changed when Remus had told him to change. Once Moony was out, Sirius came closer and flopped on the carpet to show his submission. Moony sniffed and licked Padfoot's muzzle and nose. Sirius soon noticed that Moony was quite peaceful and just got down next to him, his head on his paws. Sirius got up, trotted a bit away and transformed. He was ready to transform back at the slightest problem, but Moony just lifted his head, sniffed and looked at him.

"Are you okay, Remus?" Sirius asked.

Moony lifted his head and nodded. Sirius was relieved and came closer.

"So you really are yourself, eh? Come to me, love, I want to hold you!"

Sirius sat down next to Moony and the wolf curled up between his outstretched legs, put his head on Sirius' thighs and looked up at him. Sirius smiled.

"You are so beautiful, Moony! And now I won't ever be afraid of you anymore, even less than I ever was. Now I can hold and cuddle you, caress your fur and stroke it, the way you do Padfoot! I love you, Moony! I love you…"

Sirius held the wolf tightly, caressed him tenderly and kissed him on the head. Moony whined in a very low voice. Never before had anyone been able to touch him in his wolf form. He was in bliss and if he would have been able to purr he would have purred. Sirius stayed like that for a while, then he straightened and said:

"Come on, Moony, we go to bed!"

Sirius undressed and climbed into the bed, then tapped it with his hand. Moony had followed him reluctantly, but now jumped up on the bed and flopped down on the mattress. Sirius slipped under the covers and extinguished the light. He pulled Remus closer and caressed him tenderly.

"I'm tired, love. Sleep well!"

Moony licked his face and put his head down on his paws again. Sirius turned to him and held him through the night. Both of them got several hours of sleep. Remus woke shortly before the moonset and waited for his transformation. He braced himself for the pain and sighed, but it went fairly well. He was exhausted afterwards. Sirius, who had watched him, pulled up his blankets and covered Remus, kissed him, and said:

"Sleep some more, love! I'll be right here."

"Sirius! You almost gave me a heart attack, you know! Transforming out of the blue! I could have attacked you, you never knew!"

"That's why I went and did it at a distance. By the time you'd have jumped up I'd have transformed back into Padfoot. But you stayed all calm, love! I so longed to be able to hold you as a wolf! I so wanted to give you back what you so often give to Padfoot!"

"Yes, I didn't get agitated at all at the human scent. That proves, how good Papa's potion is, doesn't it? You'll be able to brag in front of Severus, that you were with me as a human when I was a wolf!"

Sirius laughed, kissed Remus again and said:

"You bet I will, when I need to. Now sleep. Or do you need something?"

"No, I don't. Just more sleep."

"Sleep well, my love!"

* * *

The time until the Christmas break passed quite quickly. Hermione plucked up her courage and caught Sirius once to ask him, if he'd teach her the Animagus transformation.

"It's quite a bit of magic, Hermione, I'm quite sure you can do it, but maybe you should have a bit of patience still and wait for another year or two?"

"I just know that I wanted to do this since Professor McGonagall told us about it and showed us her cat form. Transfiguration is my best subject."

"Well, I can do it, but we won't do it illegally. If I'm to do it we're going to register you from the beginning. Would that be okay?"

"I think so. What do I have to do for that?"

"I'll have to ask. All I know is that Arthur Weasley gave me registration forms and then I had to send them to the Department of Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures. I'll send them an owl and ask how to go about when you are attempting to work on the transformation."

"Would you do that? That would simply be great. Maybe I can talk Harry and Ron to do it, too… though Harry sometimes has a hard time with transfiguration."

"Does he? It was James' best subject. He'd transfigure the most amazing things. Finally we found some difference between the two then, eh? Oh, and I wonder, if McGonagall still goes to hunt mice when she's angry or agitated…"

"What?" Hermione asked, baffled.

"We saw her once. And she never had the slightest idea, that we were not real animals. It was too funny. Of course I couldn't pass the chance up to chase her up a tree."

In spite of her admiration for her teacher, Hermione had to laugh.

"Well, just imagine our regal professor with a mouse in her mouth. It's hard to laugh in your Animagus form, but it was hilarious and we still laughed after coming back to the dorm."

"That's quite an image I have in my mind now, Sirius!"

Sirius wrote the letter to the Ministry and after a few days he received a few application forms for the first part of the registration for the learning Animagus.

"Wonder where they dug that one out, because there were only seven Animagi in the register for this century when I looked it up," said Hermione.

"Well, I wager there are a couple more, unregistered, just like us. The thing isn't too hard to learn, it's really mostly difficult to find the procedures."

"Are there more than one?"

"Oh yes! There are at least five or more different methods. The most extreme let you choose the animal you want to become. We just wanted it as quickly as possible, so we didn't do anything that spectacular. For you we'll have to research the best method. Will you tell Minerva you're attempting it?"

"I'm still thinking about that. I think, I will."

"Then I prepare myself mentally for her outrage," Sirius said and smirked.

"Do you think she'll be angry?" Hermione asked.

"Well, the way I know her, she might be acting angry, but that will be to hide her pain you didn't ask her. We could, of course, go to her right away and tell her. You could always claim you'd asked me, because I have a lot of time at hand."

"That would be the best thing, wouldn't it? Let's go!"

They went straight to Minerva's office and knocked. She was there and let them in. When Hermione entered with Sirius, she looked a bit startled, then said with a smile:

"So what have you done this time, Sirius?"

"Nothing yet, Minerva. Hermione has asked me to teach her the Animagus transformation. We have received the application forms from the Ministry. I wanted to make sure it's alright with you that we do this."

Minerva stared at Hermione and replied:

"Miss Granger, are you quite aware that this is a bit above your current ability?"

"I think so. But I'd like to start researching and learning and work myself there."

"Sirius, you should ask her parents, if they agree with this. I think she could go through with it, but since you were reasonable enough to get application forms from the Ministry you might check every direction… it's dangerous."

"I know. I think we'll check every method and choose the one that's best for Hermione."

"You'll have to get some books out of the restricted section, I'd better give you a permission slip for Madam Pince. I'm not sure if she'd let you in, even now," Minerva said with a grin.

He grinned right back.

"I don't think you need to, I've been all around the library in the past few weeks, she never stopped me."

"Flattery will only get you so far, Black!"

Sirius just winked at Hermione.

"Well, I don't need to remind you, that this may not interfere with your regular schoolwork, Miss Granger!"

"No, Professor, it will not. I'll get everything done."

"Well then. Go ahead if you must. But I think I will have to inform the headmaster about it."

"Thank you, Professor."

Once back outside the deputy headmistress' office, both sighed relieved. Sirius grinned and said:

"Well, that went much better than I expected."

"Maybe because we told her before we went ahead…"

"Spot on. Now we have to find a place where you can work on it. First part will be done best in the library."

They got started the next available Saturday afternoon. After an hour of working through several books with Sirius she said:

"You know, from the map and your stories, I thought you weren't a very serious student, but watching you now, I get the impression you must have been quite well acquainted with the library…"

Sirius laughed.

"Well, to be honest, I had top marks in almost everything. My downfall was Herbology, but mostly, because it bored me to bits and I missed most of the lessons. And I did work. I spent a lot of time in the library, because I love to read. Plus we planned a whole lot of pranks, many of them needed to be researched, so we spent a good bit of time in here to find spells and potions for our pranks."

"What a reason to study," Hermione laughed.

Remus found them in the library, engrossed in their books to find the different methods for the Animagus transformations and taking extensive amounts of notes.

"Here you are! I was looking for you, Siri. – What's that? Don't tell me you engaged Hermione in researching for a prank?" he asked.

"No such thing, Moony. Hermione wants to become an Animagus."

"She's too young, Siri! It's dangerous! Are you crazy?"

"Don't worry, Remus, we have done this thoroughly and openly, so I got her the application for the Ministry, she sent it in and is now waiting for the form to register once she's through with the studying. She'll have a case worker from the Ministry watching over her, though for the life of me I can't imagine who would want to do that, since none of the blokes there even have as much as an idea of how this thing works. We also told Minerva and her parents. So now we're trying to determine the best method for her."

"Oh dear, Hermione. You're quite ambitious there…" Remus said.

"I do want to learn it so much!"

"Plus it keeps me busy for a while…" Sirius grinned.

"That will probably be the best part of it," Remus retorted.

"What did you want?"

"Ask you out, actually. I would like to go out tonight."

Sirius' eyes went wide. It used to be him who asked Remus out, but since their reunion he had not even felt the need to go for a butterbeer to the Hogsmeade pub. He swallowed.

"I'd love to, Moony. In an hour?"

"Perfect. I still have a few essays to grade. Don't get lost in this…"

"We won't."

Sirius followed Remus with his eyes. Hermione smiled. The two couldn't have been more obvious, even though they didn't show it openly.

"I don't think you two need to hide. You're such a nice couple, Sirius."

"Did Harry tell you about us?"

"Sirius, Harry is usually notoriously thick with things like these. For once he found out by himself, but I was faster. I knew before he told me. Just like I knew about Remus before Harry told me."

"Oh."

"In any case: enjoy your evening out. We'll continue this some other time."

"Do Ron and Harry already know about you studying to become an Animagus?"

"No. But I intend to tell them tonight. So they can still jump the train if they want to…"

Sirius laughed. Then they started to put away the books they were using and collected their notes. Hermione commented on his writing:

"You have an amazing handwriting for a man, Sirius! This looks so readable…"

"Well, you know, we used to take turns in doing the homework, especially in History and Herbology. One would do the work and the others would copy. So we only had to do about a quarter of the writing, but naturally we then had to write in a manner that the others could read."

"That's a form of cheating I do not allow Harry and Ron! They have to learn by themselves. Otherwise they won't learn much, those two."

"Worked for us… "

They parted ways. Hermione took all the notes and went back to the Gryffindor tower while Sirius moved down to Remus' rooms and took a shower. He was just coming out of it, when Remus came into the bathroom.

"Well, where do you want to go, love?"

"London. Dinner first and then dancing. Put Muggle clothes on, love, I don't want to be around Diagon Alley with you yet…"

"That's okay with me…"

Both enjoyed their evening out. They were in some Muggle dancing club and had a fair amount to drink, danced their way through the time and held through until the club closed at four in the morning. They both returned to Hogwarts slightly inebriated and fell into bed and asleep within minutes. Remus' last thought was that Sirius was starting to get himself a lot of new happy memories and that this would help him to leave the horrors of the past 12 years behind.

* * *

When Minerva asked the Gryffindors, who would stay over the Christmas break, only Harry, and Hermione wanted to stay at Hogwarts. Both of them would only stay until the 26th though, when Harry would go with Sirius and Remus to the Black's manor near Plymouth, Hermione was still a bit torn. She would have liked to be with Harry.

Sirius noticed her restlessness when he was working with her the next time. They were sitting in the library and had been quietly talking about the subject, when he noticed she was somehow distracted. He asked her straight out what was wrong.

"Nothing, really. I will miss Harry during the break…"

"Are you going home then?" Sirius asked.

"Only when you will go to your parent's place… I'll stay with Harry until then. We'll take the train to King's Cross afterwards."

"So would you like to stay with Harry?"

She blushed. Sirius thought she might have developed a bit of a crush on Harry and said:

"You'd be very welcome to come with us. We're going to the Burrow for the New Year's Eve. Then we'll all return to Hogwarts from there."

Her eyes lit up. He thought she had wonderful warm eyes and thought they were the same chocolate brown that James' used to be. 'Same eyes, but the genders switched,' he thought with some amusement. It took her a moment, but then she said:

"If it would be alright with your parents…"

"Oh, but you can count on that… the house has about 30 or something rooms… it's huge!"

"Wow. I'll ask my parents if it's okay. I'd love to."

Sirius smiled:

"You like Harry, don't you?"

"Am I that obvious?" she asked back, afraid that others might have noticed, too.

"Maybe not to everyone your age, but to me you're quite obvious. It's a nice thing, Hermione, never deny yourself a chance to love. It mustn't hold for the rest of your life, you know, but if it does, it's extra wonderful. No one has ever been able to prove that children can't fall – and stay – in love, some know early on. If that's your case and if Harry returns your feelings – rejoice! You'll have my support if you need it, okay?"

"Thanks, Sirius! You're such a sweetheart, you know that? How could anyone ever thought you to be a murderer? I really don't understand that."

"So, you'll come?"

"If my parents allow it, yes, I'll come. Thanks a lot for your invitation."

"Good."

"I'll either come with you or go home to my parents. I need to go and tell Professor McGonagall, that I'll be leaving with you."

Hermione gathered her things, then Sirius walked her out of the library. He followed her with his eyes, after she had wished him a good night. He stood still for a moment, but then a familiar soft and taunting voice said:

"You're not starting to lust after small girls now, Black, are you?"

Sirius swirled around.

"I don't know where you take such sick ideas from, Snape! I think I have quite made a point long ago that I'm gay…"

"Wouldn't put it past you, you know!"

"Hermione Granger is a very gifted young woman and if I take interest in her it's entirely paternal, believe me. Besides this is none of your business."

"It will be if you start stalking students, Black."

"You utter one more word, Snape, and we'll go straight to Dumbledore to settle this," said Sirius coldly.

Snape hadn't expected Sirius to be so sure about himself and gave in. He swirled around and vanished into the library. Sirius stormed through the corridor and down the marble staircase to Remus' rooms. He couldn't wait to leave the castle and settle in their own home. It would mean he'd see less of Harry, but that would be better than being taunted by Snape.

Sirius waited for Hermione's information whether she would be coming with them to Black Manor over Christmas. She told him two days later and he owled his parents that Harry would be accompanied by his best friend.

Harry and Hermione were the only ones in their whole dormitory to stay until after the Christmas days. They really enjoyed the quiet that was reigning for once. They both knew it was the full moon on Christmas Eve, so they went to Remus' rooms in the afternoon to wish him a peaceful night. He smiled at them. Harry now noticed the gold in his eyes being much stronger, giving him a very feral appearance. Sirius sat next to him and pulled him in his lap. They had tea together, Remus drank his last dose of wolfsbane potion. He explained its workings to Hermione who said:

"I wish I could see you as a wolf… I've always been fascinated by wolves – they are amazing animals."

"Well, if I'm a full fledged werewolf you wouldn't fancy me, believe me. If you'd survive the encounter in the first place."

"How did you survive, Remus? Can you remember?" Hermione asked.

Remus sighed. It wasn't a story he liked to tell, but he knew, Hermione was sympathetic, so he didn't mind quite so much.

"I was four years old and had left my bed one summer night to sneak out into the garden. My parents were sitting on the terrace, but they didn't notice me. At least at first. Everything went too fast that I could really remember it, but I know from what my father told me, he and my mother heard me cry out, must have been before the wolf had bitten me and just when he had sunk his teeth into my chest they were behind him and stunned him. They took care of me and left him out there, he was able to flee after the stunning spell, which wouldn't work too long on a werewolf, wore off. I know that he was killed a year later, when he had attacked a Muggle couple and had killed them."

"And you?"

"I woke up in St. Mungo's about two or three days later and then they tried to explain to me what happened. I went unconscious several times and once, when I was only half awake I overheard one of the mediwizards tell my parents it would be better if they let him 'put me out of my misery'. That's when my father got really angry and it must have been the first time I heard him shout at someone. He told the mediwizard in no uncertain terms to do his bloody duty and heal me instead of suggesting more such awful things."

"Awww… what an awful thought!" Hermione exclaimed, "I wonder if that abomination of a mediwizard would have said the same thing, if one of his own children had been hit!"

Remus pressed himself back into Sirius' chest and rested his head on his lover's shoulder. He shrugged his shoulders and said:

"I know that there were many parents who really listened to such a suggestion. But mine wouldn't have anything like this, they really cared for me. I don't think I would be the person I am now if not for their unconditional love. My father still loves me as strongly today. And of course later on I got the chance to come to Hogwarts and met my friends. I've lost three of them now, but the most important one is still there, or there again and it means more to me than life itself."

He looked up at Sirius. But then he looked at the time and told the children:

"I hate to do it, but you have to leave! I know I'm a harmless wolf now, but I don't want you to see me transform, it's something I really hate and I know it must be a terrible sight. Go and have dinner and if you really want to, you can come by afterwards for a visit. With Sirius there as Padfoot I know that I won't break out anywhere and he's been with me last month in his human form, I never attacked him, so now I know for sure I won't harm you."

Sirius was amazed at Remus' openness. He kissed him on the forehead and said:

"You are still able to amaze me, my love. I can seal the doors during your transformation, afterwards you're not a problem anymore…"

Harry and Hermione were okay with the idea. Harry said:

"Okay, that would be great! Will you have transformed by the time dinner is over?"

"Definitely. In fact, I'll expect the transformation to start in about fifteen minutes!"

"We're better out then, eh? See you later! I hope it's not too painful," said Harry.

The two children left and went to the Great Hall for dinner. There were three other students who had remained at the castle. Dumbledore was already there and invited them to choose a seat at the single table that stood in the middle of the Great Hall. Snape, Madam Pomfrey, Hagrid, Flitwick, McGonagall, her daughter Justine, who had arrived that late afternoon for a visit and Edith Sprout were also attending the meal. McGonagall introduced her daughter to the students. Justine looked at Harry and asked:

"I thought I'd see your godfather and Remus Lupin here? Do they hide in their rooms?"

"Sort of…"

"It's the full moon tonight, Justine," McGonagall said softly.

"Oh. So he's in the shack?"

"No, luckily there's a potion now. Severus makes it for him, so he doesn't have to be locked up. In fact, after the transformation he could walk in here and the children could play with him, he wouldn't attack anyone."

"Oh. That should be a great help then."

"It is, believe me, and it gives us an excellent teacher."

They had talked so that only Harry and Hermione were able to hear, the other students were too shy to listen into their conversation anyway and had not heard anything. Hermione pondered if it was wise to say that they had actually been invited to go back. Then she said:

"We've been invited to go and see him after dinner…"

"Now, I think you shouldn't really do that, Hermione, it's not very prudent! Sirius should never have told you to go!" McGonagall said softly.

"It wasn't Sirius, it was Remus who said we were allowed to come and meet him," said Harry.

"That's something else, I suppose. He would never offer something like that if he wasn't dead sure nothing would happen."

"He said, Sirius had been with him as a human last month and he hadn't attacked him at all," Harry explained.

"Sirius is Remus' mate, Harry, I don't think he'd attack him by default. But Remus must know what he does. His worst fear is hurting someone, so if he actually said you were welcome then he must be really sure that he does not become harmful," Dumbledore said.

So, they took their time to eat and enjoyed the gorgeous decorations of the Great Hall. When the teachers started to leave, Harry and Hermione stood up. Justine McGonagall looked up and told them:

"Tell Sirius, I'd like to talk to him tomorrow, Harry, will you?"

"I will, Miss," Harry promised.

They went back and knocked on the door to Remus' flat. Sirius opened the door just enough to let them in. Remus was curled on a sofa and lifted his head. He sniffed and jumped off the sofa, slowly approaching after Sirius had closed the door.

"Now you behave, Moony, won't you?" Sirius said jokingly.

A short bark was his reply. Hermione stared at the beautiful grey brown wolf in front of her. Remus was taller and a bit bulkier than a natural wolf, but not to mistake. She held out her hand and instead of sniffing, Remus licked it. She giggled. Hermione was sure he wouldn't harm her now, because he'd probably have attacked long ago, had he wished to do that. Harry followed her and they all went back to the sofa. Sirius sat down and patted the space next to him. Moony jumped up and stretched out, his head on Sirius' thighs. Harry and Hermione sat on the armchairs on the other side of the coffee table.

"Professor Dumbledore and Professor McGonagall know we're here," she told Sirius.

"Good."

"And there was a woman who wanted to meet you tomorrow, she's McGonagall's daughter?" Harry said and looked over to Hermione.

"Yes. Justine McGonagall…" Hermione confirmed.

"Oh dear. She is an Auror. Used to work together with me," Sirius explained.

"Oh."

"She was one of the Aurors who were there when I was arrested."

"She asked whether you and Remus were hiding, so I said sort of. It was Professor McGonagall who then told her it was the full moon tonight. So she knows about Remus, I thought."

"Yes, she does. Didn't ever faze her either. She also knows we're a couple."

"I see. Are there many people who know that Remus is a werewolf?" Hermione asked.

"There are quite a few. Everyone in the Order knows and no one had been uncomfortable."

"What Order?" asked Harry.

"The Order of the Phoenix. That's the organisation we joined to fight Voldemort. We were all members, your parents, Remus and I."

"And Pettigrew wasn't?" Hermione asked, surprised.

"No, he was of not much use, you know. He worked in some unimportant small Ministry office and his mother kept him out of everything. Agnes Pettigrew is a bit of a snob and looked down on everything Muggle. Not that she would have become a Death Eater, I suppose that would have been too dirty business. She was a Hufflepuff."

There was another knock on the door. Sirius looked at Remus, who had lifted his head before the knock came and looked at the door. Finally Remus nodded, so Harry got up and said:

"I'll get it…"

"Thanks, Harry."

Harry opened the door and found Dumbledore, Flitwick, Madam Pomfrey, Hagrid and the two McGonagalls in the corridor. Dumbledore smiled and said:

"Well, seeing you all happy and well means you've been received well. Do you think Remus might like more company on Christmas Eve?"

Harry smiled and said:

"I don't think he'll eat you… do come in, Professors!"

None of them had ever even gotten so much as a glimpse of Remus as a wolf. They came in and slowly approached the centre of the room. There was not enough room for everyone, so Albus suggested:

"How about joining us over at the lounge?"

Remus jumped off the sofa. He looked very uncertain and wanted to crawl back into his bedroom, but Sirius said:

"Would be nice, Moony, don't you think so? It's been decorated so beautifully."

Madam Pomfrey was the one who decided it. She crouched down in front of Remus and hugged him. Then she said tenderly:

"After all the years I have taken care of you after your transformations I'm really very happy to meet you in your wolf form, Remus! You are beautiful, do you know that?"

Remus answered her by licking her face and then her hands. She scratched him behind the ears and smiled. When she turned to the door he followed her with a cheeky look back on Sirius. And Sirius grinned. The group moved on and walked through the corridor and around the corner to the huge teacher's lounge. Harry and Hermione were very curious to see where the teachers spent some of their free time.

"Wow, not a bad lounge, eh?" Hermione whispered into Harry's ear.

"Not bad at all…"

There were other teachers in the lounge when they entered. Seeing the wolf in the middle of the group made some of them edgy, but Dumbledore ushered them all in, turning to his colleagues, saying:

"Now you can all see firsthand, what Severus' wolfsbane potion achieves! I'm very happy to say that we do not have to lock Remus up on full moon nights! Here he is! Perfectly alert and peaceful."

"This is amazing! Who would have thought you could be with a werewolf on a full moon night and live to tell the tale without becoming one?" Professor Vector, who had not been at the dinner table, said.

"It's all due to the wolfsbane potion. – Severus, you can now look at Remus without being terrified," Dumbledore said softly.

Snape had stared at Moony, completely paralysed. He saw the wolf in the middle of the people he felt familiar with, not showing the slightest sign of aggression. Remus looked up at him and sat down, lifting his right paw. He whined a bit, but it didn't exactly do anything to Snape. He just stared at the wolf, got up and walked to the door.

"Don't think you'll ever get me to befriend this abomination, Headmaster!"

"That would be your loss, Severus. I'm sorry to find you so hard. Happy Christmas!"

Remus turned his head, looked after Snape and then back at the people around him. He sat down on the carpet in front of Sirius, who had taken a seat on one of the sofas.

"Oh, come on up, Moony! You belong here!" Sirius said.

"You're both welcome to take a seat, Hermione, Harry! It's still quite early," Dumbledore invited them kindly.

Both went to sit next to Sirius and Remus on the sofa. He had returned to his comfortable position stretched out next to Sirius, with his head on Sirius' thigh. Sirius caressed him tenderly and told the others:

"I was close to crying last month, when I noticed, how calm he was. I had been with him in my dog form while he transformed, because that's a difficult moment, he might lash out in his pain, but then he was so calm after the transformation, just like now! He's just wonderful and I thought if it was possible, then I loved him even more. It has given him the confidence to see Harry and Hermione and now you all tonight."

"It's wonderful! I have to admit I was a bit scared, when I heard he'd come to teach, but I have been your teacher and I had known back then already, so now I know that he's just as wonderful as a wolf as he's a person. I'm so glad that this potion helps you so well, Remus! It's good to have you with us," said Vector.

"It's what he missed most of all before he became our friend. To be left and locked up all alone is probably the worst aspect of being a werewolf. For him anyway."

Slowly they started to talk and not watch Remus anymore. Sirius continued to cuddle and caress him the whole time they spent with the others. At eleven, Albus told Harry and Hermione that it was time to return to their dormitories. They wished everyone a good night and happy Christmas, then they left and went up the marble staircase. While walking up, their hands swung a bit and touched. Both stopped, but then Harry took her hand in his and they reached the portrait hole. The Fat Lady let them inside. In the common room they wished each other good night and went the last bit to their dormitories alone.

Harry was just falling asleep, when he heard the door to his dormitory open and close again. Moments later he heard the curtains around his bed ruffle and then Hermione climbed into the bed.

"It's so damn lonely over there. Move a little?" she asked.

Harry scooted to the other side of his bed and held the duvet up for her. She quickly slipped underneath and lay down. He smiled. She felt warm and exciting. She wore a mint green flannel pyjama with little teddy bears printed all over it. He felt for her hand again, took it and squeezed it, then they both fell asleep quickly.

They awoke when the first rays of sunlight entered the windows of the dorm. Both were a bit startled at being in the same bed, but then Hermione sat up, bent down and kissed Harry on his cheek.

"Good morning, Harry! Happy Christmas!"

He beamed up at her.

"Good morning, Hermione. Happy Christmas to you, too!"

"Look, presents! I'll have to go over to my dorm to get mine, then we'll open them together, okay?"

Harry sat up and looked at the big pile of gifts on his bed.

"That's much more than I usually get, Hermione, could it be that yours are already here, too?"

"Then there are people who know entirely too much around here, Harry!" she said, exasperated.

"Here, that's my present for you, I recognise it!" he said and laughed.

"Thank you, Harry! – Oh, and this is mine for you!"

Both started to unwrap their gifts and thanked each other. Harry had of course received another Weasley jumper and some homemade sweets from Molly, then there was a book from Remus, more sweets from Ron and finally there was a very long and thin package. He looked at it in astonishment.

"What could this be?" he wondered.

"Looks a bit like the package looked when you got your first broom, don't you think? You'll have to open it to know!" she suggested.

"Mhm."

Harry got up and put his slippers on, then tore the paper from the gift. And then he gasped for air.

"WOW! Hermione, that's a Firebolt!" he almost screamed.

"That looks like a very good broom to me…" she said.

"Very good? You have no idea, it's the best ruddy broom on the market! The Irish national team has gotten it for the next world championship next year!"

"Oy! That sounds sophisticated! Who gave it to you? Sirius?"

"Let me see… here's the card! 'Dear Harry, this is 12 years worth of missed birthday and Christmas presents. With all my love, your godfather Sirius.'"

Hermione let her hand run over the broom. She could almost feel the power in it. Harry lifted it up, and it hovered next to him, in just the right height for him to mount it. He was tempted to try it out right there in the dormitory.

"Wow, that's the most unbelievable thing I ever got from anyone, Hermione!"

"Hard to top that, eh? I'm happy for you, now you have a new broom and the team has a Firebolt! I can't wait to see Malfoy's face when he sees this. And Ron! He'll be out of his mind!"

"Oh, I have to make sure Ron is there when Malfoy sees that Firebolt for the first time."

Hermione laughed.

"I think that will be worth watching."

"What's the time? Sirius told me not to go down to their rooms before eleven o'clock. Better only for the Christmas lunch."

"It's only 9.30, Harry, you'll have to be patient!"

"Oh, I so want to go and say thank you to him!"

Hermione could see how excited he was. She looked outside and said:

"You know what? The weather looks nice, why don't we go out and try it out?"

"That's a superb idea, Hermione, go back to your room and get dressed! Put something really warm on!"

She got up, put her slippers on and gathered her gifts, then she left and they met half an hour later in the common room. She had her wand out and cast warming charms over both of them.

"That will keep us extra warm!" she said.

"Thanks! You're incredible, you know?"

"Just clever. – Come on!"

Together they walked down the stairs and found their way out of the castle to the Quidditch pitch. For the first time, Harry mounted the Firebolt. He looked at Hermione and asked:

"Want to come along for the ride?"

She hesitated only a moment, then she got on the broom behind him and Harry kicked off carefully, rising slowly into the air. He accelerated gradually and started to find out all the features of his new broom. Hermione held onto him tightly and both really liked the feeling. He looked over his shoulder at her. She grinned.

"You're not afraid now, are you?" he asked.

She shook her head and was even able to look down.

"No! This is really great! I never thought I could ever like flying on a broom. But this is really nice. Maybe it's because I'm up here with you…"

"I like to think that!" he confirmed.

She held him just a little bit tighter after that. And he got a bit more daring and started on some manoeuvres, dived, not too fast at first, but then increasing in speed. She cried out like they were on a roller coaster ride. But her cheeks were flushed, more from feeling him than being frightened. When they got back to the ground an hour later, he asked:

"So, could I tempt you to give it another go at flying a broom?"

"Yes, maybe now I could handle it better… I'd be scared less for you when you play Quidditch, if I could do the flying thing myself."

"Here, have a go yourself then. That broom will do the teaching, believe me, it reacts to each and every movement you make on it, it's just great."

Hermione took the broom a bit carefully, mounted it and Harry gave her an encouraging smile. She hesitated. He looked at her cheekily and asked:

"What do I have to do to give you the confidence to go?"

"Kiss me?" she asked back.

He looked almost shocked, but then he decided she was serious and closed the space between them. He kissed her on the lips. The contact almost made him wince, it felt so electrifying. He let go of her and stroked her cheek with one hand lightly, while he looked into her eyes. She looked back for a moment, but then kicked off and rose into the air. The broom really did follow her each and every move and helped her along. For a while she spiralled up higher and higher, until he called:

"Careful, love, you're high enough now!"

'**Love**?' he wondered inside. 'Now where did that come from?' Harry looked up anxiously, wondering what Hermione thought of this endearment. But Hermione just stopped rising and started to fly on the level she had reached, back and forth between the two goal posts of the pitch. She started to like it more and more and was determined to make him proud. 'Love' he'd called her and her heart was doing what Sirius had recommended, it rejoiced. She could have cried out of bliss at it, because without having thought he had told her he loved her. Her heart was racing and she thought about him with all of her admiration and love. After a while she started to come back down. She did it in spirals again and the broom again seemed to sense her intention and the leftovers of her insecurity. When she landed, he ran up to her and pulled her into his arms.

"You did great, Hermione! I was almost scared for you!"

"I wasn't, not really. This is really a fine broom, I don't think I'd be scared on one of those anymore. I think I know what to ask from my parents for my next birthday present now!"

She grinned and he grinned right back. Then she returned the broom to him and thanked him:

"Thanks for letting me use it and boosting my confidence, I really needed that! – Harry, did you mean what you called me?"

He turned his gaze to the ground, embarrassed, but admitted:

"I think so, Hermione. I don't know how this works, no one ever loved me since my parents died, so I can only guess that what I'm feeling for you is love."

"That's really nice, Harry, and I love you too, you know! I thought my heart would jump out of my chest when you called me that!"

He looked up in her eyes again. He started to smile and asked:

"You mean it? Aren't we a bit young to love?"

"We may be, Harry, but I had a conversation with Sirius about two weeks ago, and he said he believed in some people knowing what they felt early on. We don't know if we'll be in love forever, but we try to, won't we?"

"Sirius? You've talked about me with him?" Harry was a bit shocked.

"Not really, only I said I'd be missing you over the break, then he asked if I liked you. I couldn't lie. Not to Sirius. He's so nice with me and he loves you a lot. And that was when he invited me to come with you all to his parent's place."

"You're going to come with us? That's great, Hermione! I mean I'd be the only kid with all the adults. They are very nice, but I'll love to be with another kid."

Hermione hadn't told Harry and Sirius had been quiet about that fact as well, so it came as a total surprise to Harry. Hermione looked at the watch on her wrist. Then she exclaimed:

"Oh, it's time for the Christmas dinner! Let's go inside and wash up!"

"Yes, let's go!"

Harry picked the broom up, grabbed Hermione's hand and they ran back to the castle, panting when they reached the oak front door. She pulled it open and said, laughing:

"Oh I wish we could just fly up all those stairs! I'm so out of breath now!"

Harry stopped and pulled her in an embrace. They kissed, their first real kiss, a bit shaky still, but so exciting they didn't even notice that. When they broke apart, Harry looked around, but saw no one, so he held out the Firebolt and said:

"Come on, no one will see us – just the stairs…"

Without hesitation Hermione climbed on the broom behind him and Harry kicked off, slowly, then sped up the stairs. They actually got up to their corridor without being seen and landed on the floor, running to the portrait hole and giving the Fat Lady the password. A short while later they came back down the common room and took each other's hand to go to the Great Hall together. They met everyone else there, even Remus had come. He smiled at the children.

"Merry Christmas to you all!" he said, then taking his seat.

"Good morning, Remus, Sirius! Happy Christmas to you, too!" Hermione answered.

Harry ran to Sirius and flung himself around his godfather's neck.

"Thank you, thank you so much, Sirius! This was the greatest gift I ever got! We've tried it out this morning, but I couldn't wait so I could come and say thank you!"

Sirius pulled the boy into a warm embrace and kissed him on the forehead.

"It's alright, Harry, I saw your old broom being destroyed and that gave me an idea what to give you for Christmas. I'm happy to see you're so excited about it."

"You don't have an idea how much, Sirius! It's also going to be a huge asset for the team, you know! I'll have the fastest broom now, so it may still be possible to win the Cup this year! We can't lose any more matches."

"You'll get it! I have a feeling you will… you tried it out already? How does it feel?"

"Unbelievable! It hovers just the right height to mount it, you don't even need to hold it! And it follows every slightest move, just amazing! Even Hermione dared to have a go and she went up really high! – Oh, and," Harry lowered his voice to a whisper into Sirius' ear, "we've given it a bit of a mischievous welcome, too, we flew up the staircase…"

Sirius laughed right out loud and then smiled. He looked at Hermione and almost held his breath when she nodded. He had the feeling that she wasn't only confirming Harry's words.

Harry went on:

"Will you come out this afternoon? I really want to show you and you could try it yourself!"

Sirius laughed softly and remembered his own time on the Quidditch team and how much he had loved to fly.

"Of course I'll come. I loved to fly!"

So the afternoon was spent outside, as the weather was beautiful and though it was cold, the sun shone the whole afternoon. Remus came out for a bit as well and laughed as he watched Harry and Sirius, who had brought his Nimbus 2001 out as well, fly around on the pitch. After a while Hermione went to the broom shed to pick up one of the school brooms. She couldn't go as fast as the other two, but they taught her a lot that afternoon and Hermione began to really like the feeling of freedom soaring high up in the air. They took turns and changed the brooms around until they were really exhausted after three hours. It darkened really fast now, and they went back to the castle after having put the school broom away again. Sirius put his arm around Remus, while Hermione and Harry ran ahead. Remus leaned close to Sirius and said:

"Do I only have the feeling or is something about their relationship different today?"

"You're quite right. Hermione admitted she's in love with him a few days ago and maybe he's discovered it and hopefully returns the feelings…"

"They'd make a great couple you know! I was quite sure that Hermione had a weak spot for him."

The next day, all four of them flew to the Three Broomsticks on their brooms, even Remus, much to Hermione's surprise. Hermione and Harry went to Black Manor through the public fireplace. Remus and Sirius apparated to his parent's home. Sirius arrived there just before Hermione landed as the first, then shortly after her Harry climbed out of the fireplace. Sirius had all their bags reduced in size in the pockets of his robes. Duncan and Adara welcomed them and led them to the living room, where they all sat down. Sirius introduced Hermione. It didn't take Adara long to find a common interest with Hermione, as they both were quite the bookworms and soon Hermione had a few recommendations for some good books. Adara showed her the quite substantial library in the Manor and told her to help herself to anything she wanted to read.

"Thank you, Mrs Black! I really love libraries. Much too much, in Harry and Ron's way of thinking, but books are so neutral and never judge. They're the one reliable thing in my life."

Adara laughed and asked:

"So why are you in Gryffindor and not in Ravenclaw, Hermione? You seem to be a very studious type."

"I am. I don't know why the hat put me into Gryffindor, but I'm quite glad I'm in there. The atmosphere is so warm and everyone is having a lot of fun, I think I do like that as well. Maybe I'm fond of a bit of mayhem, without even knowing it."

"You're lucky that you can combine the two! Sirius was able to do that, too. I was actually always amazed at my son's ability to bring home top marks and get into all the mischief he did."

"He told me you were still able to love him in spite of all the scrapes he got himself into. And he must have been in trouble much more often than even Harry."

Adara laughed softly.

"You talked to him then? Yes, I still loved my son. He has one thing that sets him apart from all of his friends, he has a heart as big as a whale and if he loves someone he gives everything he has. I think it's that which decided his Animagus form to be a dog. Dogs are so unconditional in their love and that's an apt description of my son. I hope I always only loved him without doting on him. He had to follow rules here, too, and of course he tried to get past them, just like in school, so he was in trouble with me once in while, too, but he always knew his father and I loved him. And loved us back. That's the main reason why I knew for sure that he must not have done what everyone thought he did. The Ministry tried to shut us up from the moment they had shipped Sirius off to Azkaban and they succeeded in a way. Whenever we dared to even bring up the subject, we would always be regarded as only the doting parents who could see no wrong in their child."

"He must have been very relieved to find you thinking this way, Mrs Black."

"He was. I'm really happy he's finding a way back into his life now. He had hardly been an adult when he was taken away and he spent almost twelve years in a hell where he couldn't gain anything but pain. He hasn't lived, while all the others in his surroundings had gained twelve years of life's experience and matured. I'm amazed to find him calmer now. He always hated to be cooped up, he needed to move and to go outside so much."

"He's teaching me to become an Animagus now, Mrs Black. So I got to talk to him quite a lot lately, he's really amazing!"

"What? Leading you on into becoming an Animagus? Is he out of his mind?" Adara exploded.

"Oh no, Madam, we've done it correctly, I'm registered at the Ministry and Professor McGonagall knows all about it and has approved it. Transfiguration is my best subject, you know, and I wanted to do this ever since Professor McGonagall showed us first back in September."

"Phew! I'm glad to hear that. I would have given him a piece of my mind otherwise! So you like Transfiguration? I also quite loved that. My best subject was Charms, though."

"That's my other best subject," said Hermione.

They had been walking back to the living room and Harry had caught the last few things they had talked about. He piped up:

"Every subject is your best subject, Hermione! – She's been best of our year for two years now!"

"That's quite an achievement, Hermione," commended Adara.

"I just love to learn," Hermione said modestly.

"No false modesty, Hermione, you seem to do very well and that's good to see!"

"Who would have received a piece of your mind, Mum, and why?" Sirius asked.

"You! For leading Hermione to do dangerous things. But she told me you're doing this legally."

"I'm not leading anyone on, Mum. I did learn some things, you know!" Sirius said, scandalised.

She smiled at her son.

"Yes, yes, Sirius, I'm sure you did."

"You don't believe me one word, do you?"

"Of course I believe you, darling!"

Hermione sat down next to Harry on the couch. He was amazed when she scooted up close to him and then he dared putting his arm around her shoulders.

"That's the good boy. You're good, Harry, that's exactly what I wanted," she said in a low voice.

"I'd want more. Like to kiss you."

"Better not right in front of them all, don't you think?"

"Unfortunately I do."

After tea they were shown to their rooms. Harry and Hermione got adjacent rooms and both were fitted with a four poster, big enough for three children, a wardrobe, a dresser and some chairs. Hermione put down her bag which Sirius had resized. She changed into some comfortable Muggle sweat pants and t-shirt after Adara had told her she was allowed to make herself as comfortable as she liked and had added:

"Feel at home, Hermione, we like our guests to be comfortable."

"Thank you, Mrs Black. It's nice of you to have me!"

"You're very welcome. Come back down to the living room when you feel like it."

When Hermione returned to the living room she was met by a stranger. It was Edward Lupin who had arrived just minutes earlier. He was just busy greeting Duncan and Adara. Hermione stayed a bit back, but then Adara saw her and called her in.

"Just come in, Hermione. We have another guest, may I introduce you to Edward Lupin, he's Remus' father. Edward, this is one of your son's pupils, Hermione Granger. She's a third year Gryffindor and she's in Harry's class. Actually I have the feeling she's a bit more to Harry, but so far they haven's said anything about that, so you and I are officially in the dark…"

Edward Lupin laughed a soft laugh in a warm baritone, which reminded Hermione of Remus immediately and turned to Hermione.

"I'm pleased to meet you, Hermione. Actually I know about you already, Remus wrote to me about you having been able to figure out his secret very soon. He highly praised your academic ambitions and abilities."

He offered her his hand and Hermione blushed a little. She looked up into his face and really liked what she saw. Remus must have come after his mother more than his father, she thought, as there was not much of Edward Lupin in Remus' features, but he seemed to be a very nice and rather quiet man. She felt like she trusted him immediately, a bit like when she met Albus Dumbledore for the first time. She smiled and took the hand.

"I'm pleased to meet you, Mr Lupin. I think your son is the best teacher we have! He's even been able to give our most nervous colleague confidence! He's always kind and understanding and we learn a lot with him."

"I'm very glad to hear that. I always thought that Remus would make for a fine teacher. In his higher forms he often tutored younger students. Unfortunately his condition has given him so much cause to keep away from everyone that he hardly dared to actually look for work in his chosen profession."

"I really don't know why. He's such a kind person. And even when he's a wolf, he's keeping himself so much in check. Shouldn't people encourage this? He's much calmer and nicer than many of our so called 'normal' professors."

"There are a few people who think so, Hermione, but you may not be aware of how many there out there who will not even give him a chance to prove himself once they know he's a werewolf."

"I was really angry to learn about that. Especially when we saw him on Christmas Eve. He spent the whole evening with everyone at the teacher's lounge and everyone except for Professor Snape was happy to see him. He's one beautiful wolf, sir!"

Now Edward looked at her with his mouth open. He asked, in a pressed tone:

"You have actually seen him as a wolf?"

"Yes. He had been with Sirius the previous month and Sirius had transformed back. Remus had been very calm then and he himself approved of Harry and I coming by after he'd transformed. We know now that only the actual transformation is problematic, but afterwards he can be with people when the potion works."

Edward closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Then he started to smile and admitted, tears shining in his eyes:

"Hermione, you don't even have an idea what this means to me! I've seen this little boy who had to be locked away into our cellar every month, and even though he knew exactly what he would have to endure, he always marched in there with his head held high. I always wanted to be there and hold him, but I knew that it would be too dangerous and that he needed me more for the rest of the month, so I could not put myself in danger. All we could do was clean him up the next morning and heal the wounds and broken bones. I can't even fathom the amount of pain he goes through every month, but seeing my beloved son suffer was the worst thing I had to endure. And there's no end to that. For him the worst thing was being left behind. Having to be alone when all he really wanted was friendship and love. He knew well that we couldn't be with him, and he lived through it, month after month. Having his friends in their animal forms with him must have been pure bliss for him, but this – well, to be with other people like it was the most normal thing while he is a wolf, I can only imagine how good this must have been for him."

"Yes, I think it did him a lot of good, because he was all content and happy. Cuddled up to Sirius and just enjoyed being there with all of us. Only Professor Snape seemed to really dislike him. I don't understand, really, after all he could see with his own eyes how it was all okay. And he does make the wolfsbane potion for Remus, so why did he have to be so cruel and tell Professor Dumbledore that he would not be friends with him? He even called Remus an abomination."

Hermione noticed the Blacks and Edward exchange glances and sigh.

"It's not ours to give you that answer, ask Remus and Sirius directly about it. But it's a deep rooted feud and it's been going on since their own school days. They've all been in the same year, you know."

"Oh, I see."

They couldn't go on speaking, as Remus and Sirius came in then, closely followed by Harry. Remus introduced his father and Harry and then they all sat down together for dinner. This became a very pleasurable affair, as many funny memories were brought forth by the elder generation, in the intent to slightly embarrass the middle one. Harry and Hermione laughed tears over the antics told in the points of view of the Marauder's parents. Adara had gone as far as to collect some of the owls she had received from Hogwarts and had kept over the years. She did read some of them to the others and Sirius blushed more than once.

"Oh, and there were so many owls I got from Agnes Pettigrew about how she was absolutely disgusted with my son's behaviour and how Sirius and James were constantly leading Peter into mischief and how she was scandalised since we were all descendants of full blooded wizards and witches for centuries and how could we not get our sons to behave respectively."

Edward grinned.

"Did you meet her lately, Adara?" he asked.

"Oh yes, I didn't want to miss out on giving her a piece of my mind. I remember how she was when Sirius had been captured and taken to Azkaban, how she went on and on about how she had **always** known that Sirius was capable of everything vile. She had told that in so many interviews with the press after the incident that I was sick to my stomach about her. She had been in my year in Hufflepuff and had not been a very bright student. Anyway, I did make it a 'chance' meeting about ten days ago. She was decidedly timid when she saw me. And I stared her down and asked her whether she was still so fond of her son and whether she still thought him to be the victim of you three others. She didn't answer, but I did tell her what I thought of Peter having condemned James and Lily to death, Remus to a lonely plagued life and Sirius to hell on earth. She was pretty small after that."

"Talking of Pettigrew, does anyone know what's going to happen with him?" Harry asked.

"He's been sentenced for life in Azkaban," Remus said.

"Oh, good. He deserves it! Now he can taste some of what you had to go through, Sirius," said Harry.

"He'll be out of it before the summer comes I think. They have to keep him under a hold Animagus spell all the time though."

After the dinner they all moved to the living room, where they entertained themselves playing cards or chess or talking. There were gifts from the Blacks for everyone still to be opened. Even Hermione had been thought of. She herself had brought Adara and Duncan a lovely Muggle book about the history of fashion, which was highly praised and Duncan immediately looked through all the pictures first. All the gifts for the guests had of course come from the Black's Wizarding Fashion boutique. Harry's was a full dress suit in emerald green, soft trousers, a silk shirt and silk dress robes. He was very embarrassed, but Hermione sent him out to try the garments on and when he came back he really looked very handsome.

"That's amazing, the moment I put it on it seemed to fit me perfectly, and it looked too large when I picked it up," Harry commented.

"That would be because this is one of our dress suits that adapts to your size magically, Harry," Duncan explained with a smile.

The robes looked very posh. They had a silver lined stand up collar and were floating down to the floor. Harry had noticed that he could also hold them together with a belt if he liked. The belt that came with it was black with a silver trim along the edges and a silver buckle. Cuffs and seams were trimmed with silver as well.

Duncan had asked Sirius to either send him a picture of Hermione or describe her to him. Sirius had been unable to procure a picture, but he was well capable to describe her. She was totally surprised when she found her gift to be a set of dress robes, too, and in a wonderful aqua blue colour that complimented her light brown hair and the brown eyes. It consisted of a set of inner and outer robes, the outer not closing completely over the inner robes. The silk felt lush and heavy and she thanked her hosts:

"I've never touched anything like this, it's amazing! I hope there will be many occasions to wear this, it's so beautiful. My parents won't believe their eyes when they see it!"

"You might try it on for the first time at the Weasley's New Year's Eve party, Hermione," Sirius suggested.

"Oh, that's a good idea, Mum and Dad will see it then, they will be there, too."

"If you wear yours, I'll wear mine, too, Hermione!" said Harry.

"That's what the clothes are meant for. Just go ahead, Hermione, try them on, they're enchanted the same way as Harry's, they'll fit as soon as you put them on," Adara told Hermione.

Hermione went out and when she came back into the room, all of the others stared at her. All of a sudden she wasn't just the ugly little girl with the overlong front teeth, she really looked lovely. Harry positively beamed at her. She stood next to him and Remus said:

"That goes together very well, don't you think, Siri?"

"I do! Hopefully, Ron will be okay with you two being together, Harry."

"We're scared of his reaction actually. I think we need adult help when we tell him."

"That can be arranged," Remus offered.

"Thanks."

Harry and Hermione went to bed long after their usual bedtime, but they had enjoyed the company so much and no one had told them to go to bed. Hermione asked Harry, while they went up:

"Want me to come sleep in your bed again?"

"Yes, Hermione! I'm already getting used to you next to me and I happen to think you fit in there perfectly."

She smiled.

"That's what I think, too, Harry. I'll just get ready and come over then, okay?"

"Okay."

She crawled into bed next to him just a short time later. They had plenty of space, but moved together in the middle, where Harry put his arm around her waist. Hermione lifted her hand to caress his face and they kissed. Then she said:

"Sleep well, love!"

"Sleep well, Hermione. I love you!"

"Love you, too…"

Remus and Sirius went to sleep about half an hour later. They decided to check on the children before they retired to their own room, but found Hermione's bed empty and untouched. Then they looked into Harry's room and saw that the two were curled up next to each other, already asleep. Remus smiled and pulled Sirius out of the room. He closed the door and while they walked on to their own room, he said, smiling:

"Less work for the house-elves."

Sirius grinned.

"But have you seen how perfectly innocent? They're like we were in our fourth year when we shared the bed like that."

"It will do them a lot of good, Siri, they'll grow together like that. I'm only a bit afraid of Ron's reaction when he hears of their changed relationship."

"Yes, me too, actually, though I don't know why. We'll have to see to it that they tell him immediately. To keep this secret would break him for sure."

When the next day dawned, Harry and Hermione woke up still in each other's arms. He looked at her eyes, still half closed, and smiled. They decided to stay in bed for another while, just to cuddle. Once they were fully awake, Hermione said:

"I'm afraid to tell Ron, Harry."

"So am I. He might not like it at all."

"But we will have to tell him, I think. He would take it even worse if we kept it a secret."

"Could be. That's why I told Sirius yesterday that we might need adult guidance when we tell him."

Which was what they did once they arrived at the Burrow on the late morning of the New Year's Eve. They were welcomed by Arthur who greeted them warmly. Hermione had been sleeping in Harry's bed for the entire time since Christmas Eve. She would be sharing the room with Ginny now and happily started to chat with Ginny when she brought up her bag into Ginny's room. Once the door was closed behind the two girls, Hermione asked:

"Ginny, I think I have something to tell you, which might hurt you. Do you still have a crush on Harry?"

"Just a bit. He's really nice, but I think he'll never notice me this way. Why?"

"It's hard to tell you, because I know you've had this crush ever since! But something happened and I don't want to hide it from you. Harry and I have fallen in love with each other. We're together, Ginny."

Ginny was hurt. She had been aware that her crush was one sided only. But she had not expected it to hurt this much. Hermione searched for her hands and pulled Ginny in a hug.

"I'm sorry to hurt you, Ginny, because I really like you and you're the best girl friend I have. You're not the kind to always think about make-up and things like that. You're really a good chum, which is what I so much prefer. Do you think you could remain to be a good friend with Harry and I in spite of our being together?"

Ginny nodded. If she couldn't have Harry as a boyfriend she did want to be with him as a friend. She sniffled, but then she said with a trembling voice:

"Well, if **I** can't have him then you should have him, Hermione. I'll just have to see if I can find someone else then…"

"There are some really fine boys around, Ginny. And I'm happy if you want to stay my friend, I won't bother you with lots of stuff about Harry, I'll just try to be the same as ever. Okay?"

"Okay."

"Oh, and I have something I must show you! Look at this! Sirius' parents gave it to me for Christmas. Do you know they own Wizarding Fashion? That highly fashionable boutique in Diagon Alley. The one which looks so expensive, that we never did much more than give it a fleeting glance…"

"No, I didn't. – Wow, Hermione! These are amazing!"

"Aren't they? Now listen here. Mum and Dad have already given me a set of dress robes. They're in periwinkle blue, something that would look awesome on you, too, what with that wonderful coppery red hair of yours. I'll pass them on to you, if you like them, okay? We'll look up the spells to adjust them to your size and all. These here are charmed to fit me magically."

"Put them on, Hermione, I want to see you in these robes!"

"I will – tonight. Harry has received a set, too, his is emerald green. And Remus and Sirius had received some lovely new clothes as well. Remus some awesome everyday robes in a warm beige with dark brown leaves printed on them. He looked great in them. And Sirius something similar, only his were in rusty red."

"Sounds lush."

While the girls had vanished into their room, Harry had brought up his bag to Ron's room. Ron went along with him and while Harry put his stuff away, he filled Ron in on what they had done during the break and that he had received the most awesome broom in the world.

"Ron, I was almost flattened on Christmas morning! Sirius has given me a new broom, Ron…"

"Somehow that doesn't surprise me, Harry, he knew yours was destroyed!"

"Yes, that's what's given him the idea. To make sure I didn't spend money on one myself he told me to inform him when I intended to spend more than 50 Galleons on one single item."

"Oh, now I remember that one. Clever move! So what model is it?"

"You'd better sit down, Ron… it's a Firebolt!"

"**Wow**! A Firebolt? That's – wow, that's unbelievable!"

"Isn't it though? A Firebolt on the team, that's going to be great. Hermione said she couldn't wait to see Malfoy's face when he sees it the first time and then she said to make sure you'd be there when that happened."

Ron threw himself on his bed and laughed out loud.

"Oh that's going to be one hell of a show, Harry. He'll go mad! Hermione's right!"

"It's a really great broom, Ron, you'll love it! I even got Hermione to fly on it. I took her up first, then she had enough confidence to fly by herself and now she wants a broom of her own."

"You got Hermione to fly? Wow, that's great. Did she do well?"

"She did. The Firebolt must have helped her a lot though, because it really reacts to every move. I have it here with me, Sirius reduced it in size, so I can put it in my bag, but he'll gladly resize it so you'll be able to have a go."

"Oh, I'd love to! That's just awesome. – So, did you and Hermione have a good time at the Black's?"

"It was great, Ron. Sirius' parents are really nice. Remus' father was there, too, for a while. He's just as nice as Remus is, or maybe I now know where Remus has it from. Oh, and we spent Christmas Eve with Remus in his wolf form, that was really amazing! He looks very impressive as a wolf, believe me."

"What? Are you mad?"

"No, I'm not. Remus even came out and we were allowed to join the teachers in their lounge on the ground floor. They have this huge room, where all the walls are lined with bookcases, and there are lovely couches and armchairs all over the place, some desks with antique chairs and small tables everywhere. And one of the most beautifully crafted fireplaces I've ever seen."

"Shucks! And I missed out on all of that fun!"

"You did and we missed you. It was really special. Only Snape was his usual evil self. When Dumbledore told the others to see what Snape's potion did to Remus and how he could now spend time with them in his wolf form, everyone was happy except for Snape of course. I could have killed him. Remus sat down in front of him and lifted his right paw, but Snape just sneered and ran out of the room. Dumbledore told him it's his loss."

"I'd certainly say so, too! What an idiot."

Then Harry took out his new dress robes and showed them to Ron. He said:

"I'll have to wear these tonight. Hermione and I got dress robes from Sirius' parents, and Sirius told her she should wear them tonight and she said she would. Then I foolishly said if she would wear hers then I'd wear mine, too…"

"Wow, they look amazing!"

"They feel amazing, Ron. It's all silk!"

"And you just got them as a gift…"

"Just because we were guests over Christmas. But Sirius' parents are great people. They own Wizarding Fashion, seems to be a shop in Diagon Alley."

"A shop? It's probably the most fashionable and expensive shop there! They have branches all over the world! You don't even have an idea about the kind of money they have from that. Must make the Malfoys' fortune pale. I didn't know it belonged to Black's family."

"Neither did I. Well, before this. So I got two really awesome gifts this Christmas."

"Makes up for the many Christmas and birthdays you didn't get anything, Harry. I may not have received much in my life, but at least I received something for my birthdays and Christmas every year!"

"Thanks, Ron."

When they were back down with the rest of the party, the Grangers had arrived in the meantime, Harry and Hermione looked really posh in their new dress robes. Hermione saw her parents and flew into their arms.

"Mum! Dad! It's so nice to see you! I'm always missing you so much!" she cried out.

Helen Granger embraced her only child. She looked at the dress robes and said:

"Hello, Hermione! We've missed you, too. – Hey, what are these beautiful clothes? Did you go shopping?"

"No, Mum, these were a gift from Sirius' parents. I don't think I would have been able to afford them. You know we went to stay there last week? Well, they've given me this for Christmas and Harry has received a set as well. His are different than mine and emerald green, you'll see him soon. Oh Mum, there's so much I have to tell you and Dad!"

"You sound all excited, sweetheart, I can't wait to hear your news," Helen said with a smile, "but first I'd like to say hello to everyone, especially Arthur and Molly."

"Yes, come and meet them, they're in the living room!"

Hermione got some time to tell her parents that she was in love with Harry and that Harry had become her boyfriend a short time later, after they had met Harry and re-introduced themselves. They were introduced to Remus and Sirius as well and then the children told the Grangers what had happened. Ron was there, too, and he got big round eyes and stared at them as if they were strangers all of a sudden. For a while he was withdrawn, but then he looked at them and had to admit to himself, that Harry and Hermione really fitted together. A bit later, Sirius came to him and nudged his shoulder. Ron turned to him.

"Care to come for a short walk with me?" Sirius asked.

"Is this about Harry and Hermione?" asked Ron.

"Yes, I think you have the right to vent about it to someone…"

Ron looked up at Sirius. He didn't have to look very far up, as he was already quite tall for a thirteen year old. He nodded and both of them put on their cloaks and went out. The winter air was cold, but Sirius cast warming charms over them and said:

"I'd understand if this makes you uncomfortable, Ron."

"That's not it, Sirius. It just makes me so insecure… as if I lost something. I'll feel outside now."

"I don't think that's what they want, Ron. Shall I tell you what I felt when James and Lily got together?"

"Do you think that was the same?"

"In a way. You see, James and I had been friends ever since, and in fourth year Lily came into his life prominently. Hermione actually reminds me of Lily a lot. She's more serious than Lily though, but that balances out, as Harry is much more serious than James, too. Even though I liked to see them together, at first I felt pushed away. It wasn't too easy to pass up my best friend to a girl. But I learned to accept it, because I knew they were right with each other. And Lily was always right with us, meaning James' friends, as well. She had guessed about Remus being a werewolf and was very okay with it. She was only mad at us for not having told her about becoming Animagi. I was crying over her just as much as I cried over James, after they died. And I still miss them both very much. – James had remained to be my best friend. We did everything together as we'd always done. He spent more and more time with Lily, too, but then I had the luck to win Remus. It's up to you to find someone you're comfortable with, Ron. Once you're ready for that, I mean. In the meantime, enjoy your friends, because they won't want to lose you as their friend."

"Are you sure? Don't they want to be together all the time now?"

"How about: they do want to be together and they will look for some time alone together, but they do want to be together with you, too? Talk to them in any case and you'll find out that they don't like you any less, just because they like each other in a different way now."

Ron nodded. It wasn't easy to understand, but once he was back in the house, Molly caught up with him in the kitchen. She had noticed the tension in her son, too, after Hermione and Harry had informed them all about their new status.

"Are you alright, Ron?" Molly asked tenderly.

"Not right now, Mum, but I will be."

"Good. Don't eat it all up alone though, please come and talk if you need to."

"Sirius just talked with me."

"Will you be able to accept that they are a couple now, Ron?"

"I hope so. They really seem to be happy together, don't you think?"

"Yes, I do. Harry never had anyone who loved him. We all love him in a way, but he needs someone to love him this way, Ron. It's not something you or I can give him, but that doesn't make what we **can** give him any less important."

"I'll think about it, Mum. Right now I have the feeling that I've lost something."

Molly smiled.

"Yes, I understand that, Ron. But there are plenty of nice people around and you will meet the one which belongs to you one day."

"Thanks, Mum. Can I go now?"

"Of course. Go be with them, they were looking for you."

The party was a big feast. Molly had cooked a great dinner and they all enjoyed being together, laughing and joking and after midnight they all drank the champagne which the Grangers had brought along. They didn't go to bed before two o'clock in the morning.


	6. Building a new home

**6. Building a new home**

Ron got used to seeing his friends as a couple together. They were relieved that he still wanted their friendship and gladly gave it to him. Classes resumed the first Monday after New Year and Remus held Harry back after his first lesson in the new year.

"Harry, do you still want me to help you fight a Dementor? Because I think you need to try, seeing that Dementors affect you so terribly."

"Yes, please, Remus. If you know of something that would help me and if you can teach me, I want to learn it."

"Okay, then how about Thursday here in the classroom at eight pm?"

"That's fine, I'll be there!"

"Good."

As soon as Harry had come back to the common room he was held up by Oliver Wood who asked him:

"Harry, do you have a new broom ordered yet? Because you won't be able to play well on one of those school brooms, you know!"

"He didn't need to, Oliver, he got one for Christmas," said Ron with a glee.

"Really?"

"Yes, Sirius has given it to me, Oliver, and it's a Firebolt."

"What? You have a Firebolt? Wow! Did you hear that, people, Harry has a Firebolt! This is amazing, Harry!"

"I know. We stand a chance now, don't we?"

"Absolutely! This will be great! A Firebolt on our team and for the seeker on top of it!"

Remus met Harry for the first training lesson to fight a Dementor on Thursday. Harry eyed the wobbling box on Remus' desk with a weary eye. Sirius was there as well and looked grim. He wasn't so sure if this was all a good idea after having heard the story of how Harry responded to the Dementors.

"What's that?" Harry asked.

"That's another Boggart. I've been searching the castle up and down for one and was lucky to find this one in one of Mr Filch's filing cabinets. He was more than glad I took it out. Since your greatest fear are Dementors this Boggart will turn into one once it senses you and you can try and fight it. We can store it in this box when we don't work with it."

"Oh! Okay," Harry said, not at all sure he liked it.

"Well, let's start with the lesson. The charm I'm going to teach you is a very highly advanced charm, Harry, and you might not be ready to do it, but we can try in any case. It's called the Patronus charm and the incantation is 'Expecto Patronum'. Now this is only the easy part, because you will have to concentrate on a single very happy memory when you cast this spell, because only then it will work out."

"And what happens if it works?"

"A Patronus will come out of your wand. It's something of the stuff Dementors are after, only the Patronus cannot feel any emotion. The Dementors can't destroy it and they are usually chased away by it, as the Patronus charges on them."

"Okay, I'll try," said Harry.

"Just try without a Dementor first."

Harry did and after a few tries he watched as a silvery mist came out of his wand. After that, Remus let him try with a Boggart-Dementor. Sirius kept himself well out of the way. He even transformed into Snuffles, as soon as the Dementor glided out of the box. Harry tried his best, but he found himself flat on the ground, where Remus woke him up, offering him chocolate. After a while Harry was ready to try again.

"You might look for another memory, Harry, one that was really happy."

"I don't have many of those. Well, I think I found one, let's try again."

He tried. And felt the familiar cold, heard the screams and then a male voice, calling out:

"Lily! Lily, it's him! Take Harry and run, I'll hold him up!"

Harry woke up and it took him longer to remember where he was this time. Sirius and Remus were standing next to him and helped him up. Harry had tears in his eyes and Remus asked:

"Harry? Are you getting better? Here, take this chocolate, or Madam Pomfrey will have my head!"

Harry took the chocolate, but stared down on the ground.

"It's getting worse, Remus. I've heard Dad. He told Mum to take me and run for it…"

"You… heard James?" Remus asked in a small voice.

Harry only nodded. Sirius pulled him into his arms and Harry cried.

"I'm so sorry, sweetheart, I'm so sorry!" Sirius whispered, "it's still just as painful as the day it happened, and it's my fault you never got to learn to know the wonderful people your parents were, I'm so sorry…"

"It's not your fault, Sirius! I just wish I had been able to know them…" Harry sobbed.

"I wish I could help you, Harry," Sirius said.

"I know. – Can I try once more, Remus?"

"Yes, but only once."

"Okay. I think I have a better memory now."

Harry kept the feeling and the image of holding Hermione in his arms in mind and when Remus released the Boggart, Harry shouted:

"Expecto Patronum!"

A silvery mist came out of his wand, more distinctive, but not recognisable yet, but it hovered in front of the Dementor. Harry heard the screaming, but only very faintly. The Dementor couldn't get past his Patronus, even though it was not strong enough to chase the Dementor away. Harry didn't faint this time and Remus, jumping forward and causing the Boggart to turn into the full moon, said:

"Riddikkulus!"

The Boggart turned into a squeaking mouse and Remus was able to push it back into the box. He turned to Harry, beaming and said:

"Wow, Harry, that was amazing! Not many wizards your age would be able to even get that far! Well done! – Here, have some more chocolate."

"Yes, that was superb, Harry. I don't think I could have still done it…" Sirius added.

"You could do with a try yourself then, Siri," Remus said.

"Next time maybe, okay?"

"Okay."

They accompanied Harry to the Gryffindor common room and wished him a good night.

In the following weeks Remus and Sirius continued to tutor Harry with the Patronus charm. He still didn't get much more than the indistinct Patronus out, but Remus was very content and told him not to worry, that would come once he needed it. At least he didn't faint anymore.

-

January turned into February. Sirius oversaw the construction of their house near Hogsmeade. It was finished by the beginning of the month and Sirius was most happy about it all. He surrounded the garden with a high wall and planted shrubbery around it that would conceal it in a short time. On the inside he couldn't do anything to the garden yet, but he looked forward to the spring, when he intended to start on landscaping the large area. In the meantime he furnished the house and let Harry choose the furniture for his room.

* * *

Meanwhile Hagrid had his own worries. He tried to prepare himself for the hearing before the Committee for the Disposal of Dangerous Creatures in defence of his hippogriff Buckbeak who had injured Draco Malfoy in Hagrid's very first lesson of Care of Magical Creatures. When Sirius heard about it he told Hagrid to continue preparing, but went and gave Lucius Malfoy an earful about spoilt children. 

"You do not go and intimidate them to kill a perfectly healthy and fine animal, just because your son is unable to do what a teacher tells him. There are about ten witnesses who will confirm that Draco clearly insulted Buckbeak after not listening to his teacher's lecture and you know as well as I what a hippogriff has to say to insults. You'd better take that as a lesson for your son to learn to fend for himself, Lucius, because I'm going to get the Minister's veto on this if that ridiculous Committee sentences Buckbeak to death."

Not that Lucius Malfoy was in any way intimidated, but he knew that he couldn't bully Arthur Weasley in any way. He still tried to influence the sentence, but Sirius kept being in contact with the members of the Committee and they dared telling him that Malfoy had indeed tried to bribe or bully them. So Sirius threatened to bring the whole affair to the Daily Prophet and with that, Malfoy finally relented. He ground his teeth though, because once again, Sirius Black had proved to have the stronger set of nerves. Malfoy had begun to fear Sirius during the first war against Voldemort. It had gotten more and more difficult to plan and act out his plans for the Dark Lord back then, and not too seldom because of this interfering git. Malfoy fumed, but he knew he had lost the most important foot in the door to the Ministry when Fudge had been thrown into prison.

"Blasted Black! I wish I could just get rid of him!" he fumed.

"You do not want to do anything foolish, Lucius!" Narcissa warned.

"I've never done anything foolish!" he shot back.

"I think you did, but that's not going to help in this discussion. You know that without the Dark Lord there you stand no chance to do anything against Black. Especially not now, he would have the upper hand and he has the sympathy of the wizarding world right now. Most of them anyway."

"I know. That's what makes me so angry. But I'll get my fingers around his neck yet!"

-

"I think, Buckbeak is safe for now, Hagrid. I'm keeping my ears on the Committee and so does Arthur. You should probably get a letter from them soon that they will be dropping the charges," Sirius told Hagrid.

Hagrid nearly broke down on him, sobbing. He looked at Sirius and said:

"Thanks so much, Sirius, I always knew ye were a right lad! I don't think I would have been able to defend Buckbeak properly."

"I'm sure you won't need to, now. And if you do have to go there, I'll be right on your side, Hagrid, they won't kill the hippogriff."

Hagrid received that promised letter a week later. It was the week before the Gryffindor-Ravenclaw match and Hagrid was beside himself of happiness, thanked Sirius again and again. When Draco Malfoy heard the news during the next Care of Magical Creatures lesson, he was beside himself with rage. He fumed and was ranting, until all of a sudden Blaise Zabini and Millicent Bulstrode walked up to him and declared:

"We're fed up with you, Malfoy! You know very well that the hippogriff only attacked you because you didn't care to follow Hagrid's lecture. Had you listened then you wouldn't have done anything quite so foolish as to insult the animal. It was personal revenge for your own stupidity, and it didn't work out because some people saw sense, so just bloody drop it!"

Malfoy stared at them, even angrier now.

"What the hell are you talking about? You're Slytherins, how can you even dare to betray your house?"

"We're not betraying our house, we just have common sense, Malfoy," said Blaise, "and we have enough of you thinking you can buy half the world. You can't and it's about time you learn that. There's limits, even for your precious father, Malfoy, and he's just reached one of them."

"Black!" Malfoy raged. "It's all Black's fault. This snivelling git is meddling everywhere these days."

"So what! He's helped Hagrid who would have been in no position to defend himself or his hippogriff, that's all, now for Merlin's sake, just drop it."

With that both, Blaise and Millicent turned around and stepped away. Draco stared after them and for once he didn't have an idea what to say.

* * *

The day of the match was cold, but clear, there was no wind, it was the perfect weather for a fair game of Quidditch. The two teams came out of the changing rooms and stood ready, then Madam Hooch ordered them to mount their brooms. Upon her whistle they all rose in the air, Madam Hooch released the Bludgers, the Snitch and the Quaffle. 

When Gryffindor was leading by 80 to 30 points, Harry spotted the Snitch first. He was ahead of Cho Chang, the Ravenclaw seeker. All of a sudden, he heard her shout:

"Oh!"

And made the error of looking down to the field. The blood in his veins seemed to freeze. There were three Dementors! Harry didn't hesitate, he continued in the direction of the Snitch, pointed his wand below and behind and cried:

"Expecto Patronum!"

He had his wand still in his hand, clutched in the hand that held the broom, while he caught the Snitch with the other. He hadn't even looked behind what had happened after he cast his Patronus charm.

"AND POTTER CATCHES THE SNITCH, GRYFFINDOR WIN AGAINST RAVENCLAW WITH 230 TO 30 POINTS! THIS YEAR'S CUP IS CERTAINLY NOT YET WON BY ANY TEAM!" Lee cried.

When the team had landed, everyone came running. Wood was almost out of his mind of happiness, everyone congratulated Harry on his catch and he was surrounded by friends who wanted to embrace them.

"That was quite some Patronus," said a voice in Harry's ear.

Harry looked around to see Remus, who looked both shaken and pleased.

"The Dementors didn't affect me at all!" Harry said excitedly, "I didn't feel a thing."

"That would be because they – er – weren't Dementors," said Remus with a grin, "come and see!"

He led Harry out of the crowd until they were able to see the edge of the pitch.

"You gave Mr Malfoy quite a fright," said Remus.

Harry stared. Lying in a crumpled heap on the ground were Malfoy, Crabbe, Goyle and Marcus Flint, the Slytherin team captain, all struggling to remove themselves from long, black, hooded robes. It looked as though Malfoy had been standing on Goyle's shoulders. Standing over them, with an expression of the utmost fury on her face was Professor McGonagall.

"An unworthy trick!" she was shouting. "A low and cowardly attempt to sabotage the Gryffindor seeker! Detention for all of you and fifty points from Slytherin! I shall be speaking to Professor Dumbledore about this, make no mistake! Ah, here he comes now!"

Next to Minerva stood Sirius, laughing himself silly. He had his hand on Hermione's shoulder and she was laughing, too. If anything could have set the seal on Gryffindor's victory that day it was this. Ron, who had fought his way through to Harry's side, doubled up with laughter as they watched Malfoy fighting to extricate himself from the robe, Goyle's head still stuck inside it.

The Gryffindors went back to the castle and up to their tower to have a celebration party. George, Fred and Lee vanished for a while and when they came back they were laden with bottles of butterbeer. Sirius had sent some house-elves with some food up and had joined Remus in his rooms. They were packing up what Remus wanted to take to the new house with them.

"Remus, did you see the shape of Harry's Patronus?" Sirius said, as soon as they closed the door behind them.

"Yes, I did."

"Do you think James is somehow around? It feels like he's come to his son's aid."

"I thought it was amazing! And the stag was so strong!"

"That was really a cruel trick. I'm glad Harry knew what to do and didn't hesitate. If he meets a real Dementor now, he'll be able to cope!"

"I'm sure about that, Sirius. It'll surely boost his confidence in casting that spell. He was already on a pretty good way there."

"He was. I'm glad for that."

"We still have to reinforce the wards around our house, Siri. Do you have the list of the spells ready? I have put everything on it except for the Jupiter ward, which I would love to use, but then we couldn't get any owls."

"The Jupiter ward?"

"An extremely strong ward, which keeps everything out except eagles. Not a very known one. We used it on the castle in Romania, to keep out vampires mostly. It's difficult to take down, too. You had to know what to do."

"Oh, that would be limiting us too much here, don't you think?"

"Yes, I do. Alexandru was able to get the ward to accept eagle owls, but since Malfoy uses only eagle owls that's not a good idea, so we've got to leave that one away. But there are the moon wards, the protection wards, the anti-apparition wards, and we'll use additional spells to strengthen all of the wards. On that list are most of the spells that protect Hogwarts. I've checked several maps, the house does not show. And I'm going to make a new map like the Marauder's map, showing the vicinity of the house. We'll hang that one up in the study, so we can check it regularly. I think you infuriated Lucius, he may want to get back at you, you know."

"I know. But right now he won't try anything, he knows he's lost his footage in the Ministry. Arthur is not exactly his friend…"

Remus laughed.

"Oh no, definitely not. According to Harry they were fighting like dogs at Flourish & Blotts last year. Malfoy in such an undignified action! I had to snicker a bit."

"I'm sure you did. I would have bloody laughed straight out! I only hope Arthur beat the crap out of Lucius."

"I don't know how the fight really ended, but Lucius managed to sneak Riddle's diary into Ginny's things."

"Oh, I've heard that story."

"Okay, I've got most of my clothes and most of my books, I just leave some stuff here, in case I want to stay overnight once," Remus checked his things. It wasn't too much, but since Sirius had come back into his possessions and Remus had a regular fairly good salary he had bought some new things. Sirius had packed his things before and had already moved into their new home. They had invited the trio and Ginny for the next afternoon to have a small inauguration party. Sirius was still pondering whether he should get a house-elf, but Remus was not in favour of that. He preferred his complete privacy.

"But then you'll have to put up with my untidiness again, love," Sirius reminded him.

"We'll see about that. If I can't stand it, it will still be time to look for a house-elf. Besides, for the moment you're the one who will be the housewife, so you might learn to pick up after yourself…"

"Okay. Put that stuff away, Moony, I want to finally get that bed put to the use for which we intended it."

"It's only five pm, love!" Remus said.

"So what? Since when did that matter?"

He pulled Remus close and kissed him. They had gradually found back to their former sex life and had built up their strength again. Both enjoyed making love to each other and both never needed an excuse for a hop in the bed. Remus had finally dropped all of his inhibitions again and enjoyed his mate. Sirius on the other hand, was working hard to get his physical strength back, which went slowly, but steadily.

They found their new bedroom, undressed each other and were on the bed in the matter of minutes after their arrival. By the time they got up again it was dark again and they were quite hungry. They took their time for a shower though and only got dressed again after that. Sirius chose some thick woollen socks he had got for Christmas from Molly Weasley, a pair of grey sweatpants and a t-shirt, covered with a nice and warm woollen jumper, courtesy of Molly Weasley as well. Remus dressed into socks, trousers and the set of warm robes he had received from Duncan and Adara. Sirius looked at him.

"You really like those robes, don't you?"

"They're so absolutely comfortable and warm, yes, I really love them. I bet it was Mum who picked them."

"I would have thought so, too. They really like you, you know."

"Yes, I know. And you know how grateful I am for that. I love them, too."

"Well, let's see what we can make for dinner…"

Sirius studied the larder and brought out what he needed to make a nice dinner for them. He had bought quite a lot of food the day before, so he would be able to feed the teenagers on Sunday. For now he just prepared two steaks, some potatoes and salad. Remus prepared the table, got out a bottle of wine and opened it, then they sat down to eat.

"It was simply marvellous to watch Harry play today! He does so well, Moony! I really had to remind myself that it's not James who's up on that broom!"

"Yes, I've had that feeling, too. We just have to get used to it, Padfoot. Oh, and I need a broom. I don't think I want to use that Portkey every day. It's just too darn uncomfortable, so when it's not too cold or wet I'm going to use the broom to get to the castle."

"That's a good idea. Until you can get your own feel free to use mine."

"No, you wouldn't be happy without it. I can use the Portkey until I can get to the Diagon Alley."

"I can go and get one for you, if you like."

"That would be most welcome, love. I don't need anything else from there."

* * *

On Monday Remus left early enough to reach Hogwarts in time to start his first lesson. He used the Portkey and landed in the teacher's lounge. He picked up his briefcase and went to his office, where he put everything down. It would be a strange feeling, only to stay at the castle for lunch, but he decided it was so much better to stay in his own home. 

Sirius meanwhile intended to make the place a home. He had bought a baby grand piano and started to learn again what he had once known. When he had been at his parent's place the last time he had found a big pile of notes and had taken them back along. Now he started to work on the easier things, first practiced scales again, then tried the simpler pieces and then gradually continued to get back what he lost in the twelve years in Azkaban. The music did a lot to sooth his angst and his nerves.

While Remus was working Sirius arranged all the furniture in the house, until he was satisfied. On some evenings, Remus would come home only to find everything rearranged. He laughed about it. And teased Sirius:

"Hey! Have you been bored? You've rearranged everything again."

"No, just – it still wasn't how I like it most. I'm still looking for that, love. How was your day?"

"Quite nice actually. I've done some good stuff with the Ravenclaw seventh years today. They are getting quite good with the curses I'm teaching them. Albus wants me to do the Unforgivables with all students from fourth year up next year, Sirius."

"What? He really wants you to teach them….?" Sirius was baffled.

"No, of course not! No way! But I'm to demonstrate them on mice or spiders or something, and possibly teach them to throw off the Imperius curse."

"Wow. No one would have done that for us!"

"And it would have been much better if someone had. I'm to put them under the curse and then they are supposed to know how it feels. I think that's wise. To know how it feels means to recognise what happens. If you know how it feels then you also know that someone's used the curse on you. That should be a good thing."

"Yes, I think so, too. Blimey, Albus is one courageous man. I think he'll have to have the school governors behind this decision…"

"He's working to get their okay. Not an easy task I'd bet."

"Especially since they all know that the Defence teacher is a werewolf."

"Exactly. – And what did you do today, except rearranging the living room?"

Sirius laughed.

"Played some piano, started to prepare the garden for the spring planting and went to look for some more bushes for the edge of the garden. Then I went to Diagon Alley to get your new broom, which is now in the broom cupboard under the stairs. That about sums it up."

"Wow, you were busy…"

"Well… I have to do something with all that free time I have now. You tell me when you need my assistance, yes?"

"Sure. And I will gladly have your assistance the day after the full moon, which is a school day… Albus has agreed that you should be my substitute. He's glad he doesn't have to make any of the other teachers substitute for me. And you're well capable to watch the students the day after the full moon. Or at least the morning."

"Good."

The next morning Sirius got up to make breakfast. He insisted that he got up when Remus did and that they ate breakfast together. He opened the window for the post owls who wanted to come inside. The large kitchen was positioned to the east, so they would have the morning sun. The back front looked to the south and the living room had south and west view. Remus' ground floor study looked to the north.

Coming in from the front porch they entered directly into the kitchen. The kitchen and dining area took a bit more than a third of the rectangular house. To the left the corner was filled with a fairly large counter, which looked rather Muggle style with lots of drawers and cabinets, but which allowed for the wizarding cooking as well, especially when Sirius wanted to brew potions, for which he included a small area on which to put his cauldrons. The counter was covered with plates of polished granite. To the right of the main entrance was the door to Remus' study and right next to it was the staircase to the basement, the upper floor and the attic. Walking past the staircase was the dining area with a round table which could easily be enlarged to a big oval one when they entertained guests. There was a lovely sideboard and a small buffet to complete the furnishing. Through a large sliding door one got to the living room. In the front part there was a Corbusier chaise and a small table. To the left, slightly in the middle of the room, a double door opened to the back porch. In the left corner of the room was the huge couch filling the corner, a large coffee table and several armchairs. The right end of the room was now filled mostly with Sirius' baby grand piano and a long cupboard which filled the entire length of Remus' study. The study held three walls full of bookcases, Remus' desk and chair, a small coffee table and two comfortable arm chairs.

Downstairs was one large room to the right of the stairs and another to the left. The smaller room was meant for storage space and utilities like washer, dryer and had an extra bathroom. There was a large cupboard for the brooms and other stuff that needed to be stowed out of sight. The large room was meant to be used for Remus to transform. It was furnished as a party room, with a bar and several tables and armchairs and a low bench which ran alongside of one of the walls, covered in soft pillows. On the full moon nights the few pieces of furniture would be minimised and stored in the bar section, while the bar was completely covered and protected with a ward, so that even the raging werewolf would not be able to destroy it. The whole room was covered with a wall to wall carpet, extra soft and the walls were of course covered in cushioning charms, so that Remus would not hurt himself too badly.

Upstairs were the bedrooms. To the left of the staircase was Harry's room on the south eastern side, Sirius' extra room on the north eastern side, a tiny store room filled the corner behind the stairs up to the attic. Straight ahead of the stairs was Harry's bathroom. To the right of the stairs were two smaller guest rooms on the northern side and the master bedroom on the southern side. On the western end of the room was Sirius' and Remus' bathroom and a large wardrobe. From both southern bedrooms there was a door to the terrace outside. Through Sirius' extra room led a door to the terrace over the front porch.

Finally the last staircase led up to an open attic room, which was used entirely for storage. Remus had some windows placed there though and a section of the attic was very bright, with good light to work on a desk he had placed there. Next to the desk was a sofa with a coffee table and the whole room was covered with a wall to wall carpet. In case of need they would be able to cram in several people to stay overnight. There was by far enough space to put up some spare beds both, in the attic as well as in the basement.

Sirius soon managed to have his new house transformed into a home. Remus did his part, he left books lying around and he had a whole stash of craft materials for his main hobby besides reading. If he needed a break from reading he stitched. Sirius found this rather amusing, but endearing. Remus had done this long ago, but completely dropped it in the years he was abroad, now he picked it up again.

Sirius hummed contentedly while he let the owls have a few owl treats and his own owl, a barn owl named Aventicum, after an old Roman city somewhere in Helvetia, took a seat on her perch in the kitchen. She was still young, but already a very accomplished post owl. Sirius had bought her when he got Ron's owl. He took off the letters she had brought. Two were for Remus, some bills, one was for Sirius from his Mum. Then Sirius took the Daily Prophet and that owl flew out of the window immediately. Since Sirius and Remus had a prepaid subscription they didn't need to pay the owl every day. And finally there was another owl who brought a letter to Sirius. People had finally stopped to send him masses of letters. He was left alone now, but occasionally he still had some letters from unknown people in the mail. Sirius took the letter and looked at the owl who went to join Aventicum on her perch.

"Oh, you are waiting for a reply, aren't you? Well, I'll have to read that letter first, so you'll have to wait for a while."

Sirius dropped the mail on the table, then went on to prepare the breakfast. He left the bathroom to Remus first, who needed to be at Hogwarts on time. Remus came down the stairs fully dressed and ready for the school day. He went into the study to get his briefcase ready, a new one now, a bit larger than the old one, because he needed to transport everything back and forth between Hogwarts and his home. He placed the briefcase next to the door on a small bench. Then he joined Sirius at the table. Sirius had cooked the breakfast and poured Remus some tea.

"You're beginning to become a perfect housewife, love!" Remus teased.

"Oh shut it, Remy, I just want you to feel at home and start the day well! There are some letters for you…"

Sirius handed the two envelopes over to Remus.

"Thanks."

While he was sipping his second cup of coffee, Sirius opened the letter from his Mum, then looked at the bill and finally opened the letter that the strange owl had brought. He sighed and threw it on the table.

"Imagic Publications again! They really don't take NO for an answer," he said.

"Again? That must be about the twentieth time now."

"They ask me to write down my experiences. How can I tell them that it's just a few sentences I could write? Twelve years summed up in several paragraphs, that's it. Apparently there's interest in my story…"

"I've been thinking about that, Sirius, I'm sure it would be a good thing if you wrote it all down. Just take your time for it and you'll find more and more things to say. Start with the beginning and really go into detail. For yourself and if it's any good for publication then have it published. Tell them you'd be doing it in your own time, and that it might take years until you've got it down. See if they're still interested then. But you'd have your memories placed elsewhere for your own good."

Sirius looked at his lover. Remus' ideas were good. He thought about them, then went to get a piece of parchment and a quill from Remus' study and wrote his answer for the publishing house. He fixed it to the owl's leg and sent it back out. Remus finished his breakfast, drank his last cup of tea and banished his dishes to the sink.

"Oh, just leave it be, love, I'll do it right afterwards."

"Just a habit, sweetheart. I'll be off then."

Remus got up and came around the table to Sirius, who got up to kiss Remus goodbye. Then Remus went to get his cloak and his broom, took his briefcase and was out of the door. Sirius sighed a bit, then cleared the table and used a washing and drying spell for the dishes, which he then banished back into their cupboards. He sat down to put his shopping list together. Then he got washed and dressed and went to Hogsmeade to get the groceries. While walking past Dervish & Banges he stopped and went inside. He looked around and finally found a pensieve, which he bought.

Back at home he put the groceries away, then went up to his room where he set down the pensieve. He put his wand to his head and started plucking memories from his brain and placed them inside of the pensieve. He continued for a while, until he felt like his brain was empty. He left the pensieve on his desk and went back down to practice the piano. In the afternoon he worked a bit in the garden, degnomed it and started to prepare the flower beds after his plans. He had prepared a layout for the garden, large bits of lawn, flower beds all along the edges in front of bushes and trees, some trees strewn over the lawn, a rose sector along the porch. Some climbers up the pillars on the porch, which carried the terraces above. He would lead the climbers up to the terrace and have them grow along the railings. One side would be roses, the other would be wisterias, which he planned to pull along the western part of the house on two wires. On the north side he planted some ivy.

He came back into the house at about five o'clock, just when Remus returned. They kissed, but Remus said:

"Ooh, you're dirty! You must have been working hard!"

"I did. This garden is going to be lovely. It's huge, so I use some magic, but there's lots I'm doing by hand. It will take a while until it's the way it should become, but it will be well worth the wait."

"That sounds marvellous, love. Can't wait to see things growing."

"Well, the tulips won't be long, and the daffodils are already showing quite a bit. I have a whole section of irises planted around the pond, in all possible colours! I didn't even know there were so many different ones. Then I've gotten all the roses. Tea hybrids for the area along the porch and climbers in three colours for the pillars and a wisteria for the western pillars, which I want to pull along the western side."

"Mmm… what colours are the climbing roses?"

"One dark red, two white ones and one yellow. I've planted one on each pillar except for the two at the western end of the porch. And I'll still have to set up an arbour and plant two climbers at the entrance gate on the front side."

"That sounds luscious!"

Remus hung his cloak on the rack in the broom closet and placed his Nimbus 2001 there. He thanked Sirius for getting it for him.

"Thanks for getting me that broom, Siri, it's a really good one. Reacts smoothly and is very comfortable."

Sirius turned his head.

"Oh, that's okay, you're welcome. It's still one of the best brooms on the market. Should last you a while… and you won't have any excuses for not playing Quidditch with the rest of us anymore."

Remus smiled. He kissed Sirius quickly and vanished into his study to put his school things on the desk. Sirius followed him and asked:

"Do you have much to do tonight?"

"No, not too much, I did much of the grading I had to do during lunch time. I have almost an hour then."

"You should eat, love!"

"I do! I still get enough time to do something. And I usually also have about half an hour before the lessons start, to prepare. So I only have one essay to grade tonight, that's fourteen students. Should be done in about an hour. – What's for dinner?"

"What would you like?"

"Hogwarts house-elves are great cooks, but they don't seem to know pasta… anything like that in the house?"

"Sure. How would you like them?"

"Hm. Any way actually, you choose."

"Okay. I'll call you!"

Remus went up to his bedroom to change from the more formal robes he now wore to school into his comfortable ones. Then he started the work on his essays while Sirius got busy in the kitchen. He prepared the spaghetti and made a sauce of olive oil, onions and mashed anchovies, some salt and pepper, then he made some salad to go with the meal and sent some bread into the toaster. He set the table and brought the food over.

"Dinner is ready, love!" he called.

"Coming!"

They ate and exchanged their day's activities, Remus related some bits from his students and they laughed. Sirius told him about the pensieve. Remus held his breath for a moment. Then he said:

"So you're thinking about writing this down?"

"I have yet to pick up the courage to go and look at it all, Remus."

"Do you want me to accompany you?"

"You'd be mad to do that, Moony! There's horrors in that pensieve now which you don't need to see and add to your own! I don't even know if there are words to describe this all!"

"Do I sound nosy to you when I say that I would like to come in there with you… you might need someone to pull you out, you know."

Sirius sighed.

"I've put it in there. It may take a while until I dare to go in."

"I'll be ready when you are, Padfoot."

"Okay."

After a while Sirius asked:

"How's Harry?"

"Fine. This seems to be a good year for him, he does well in most of his subjects. No need to ask where he's just barely passing… I'd love to shake some sense into Snape, but I suppose I'd have to kill him to be successful. I'm glad Harry's together with Hermione, because she really helps him in Potions. So Snape can't but deduct only minimal points. The match against Slytherin is scheduled for the first Saturday after the Easter break."

"Oh, good, so we'll go and watch again."

"You bet on that."

"I'll start your potion tomorrow."

"Good. How long does this take to make?"

"A good twelve hours. But one can take longer than that it's not a problem. Only it can't be shorter. I can stop at certain stages and continue the next day if I want to. There are about three cooling periods and during those one can interrupt."

"I see."

While Sirius cleaned the kitchen after dinner Remus continued to work on his essays. He brought the last six to the living room to grade them there, while Sirius played some piano for him and when Remus was through with his work, they did something together.

* * *

It took Sirius a whole month to pluck up the courage and look at the memories in his pensieve. He had still added more memories about his past inside. He wondered if there was a limit to the amount of memories he could place in a pensieve, but so far he had found none. He was glad for that because he knew there would be enough to put down. He had started to gather all their old photos which Remus had kept locked up in Sheridan Place and what he could find at Black Manor. He wanted to go through the good memories, before he tackled the bad ones. 

One morning in early April, when the sun came out and beamed down the whole day, Sirius picked up a quill and got hold of some parchment and began to write down his life's story. He scribbled a few things down, just some short bits, fragments of memories. He had looked at the photos his Mum had given him, the baby pictures and pictures of him as a toddler. Even some of his accidental magic was documented on celluloid. Another fragment. He put the parchment away into a box. The box went onto an empty area on the counter where Remus would see it.

Remus got home on that Friday and saw the unfamiliar box. He put his things away and asked:

"What's that?"

"I've jotted some things down. I'll collect those bits and pieces in there. You're welcome to read it."

Remus picked the parchment up when they changed to sit in the living room. He took it to the Corbusier chaise and read it. He smiled when he lowered it.

"Writing your memoirs, eh?"

"I decided I needed to gather the happy memories, before I could venture into the hell."

"Might be a good tactic, or go back and forth. Some bad ones, then lots of good ones."

"Should help to keep my wits."

* * *

Easter break. Remus was mostly at home and got some rest. The full moon fell on the first night of the break. The potion had worked fine and Sirius was able to let Moony out of his confinement. They stayed in the living room and then went up to their bedroom. Moony slept through the night, but woke up at about five in a very playful mood. He nudged Sirius awake. Padfoot looked indignant, but accepted the offer and led Moony downstairs and out to the porch. He transformed and the two of them played around the garden until shortly before Moony was to transform back. They managed to get back into the house and Sirius transformed to cast some cleaning charms before they padded through the living room and up to their bedroom. 

"Moony, you are definitely filthy! Once you've changed back I'll put you straight into the tub!" Sirius said.

Moony was tired again and it didn't take long anymore until he transformed back. He sank down on the rug and Sirius levitated him into the bath and filled the tub with warm water, to which he added some essence of lavender. Moony sank into the water and relaxed. He closed his eyes. Sirius gently washed his body and his hair, then left him be for a while, to go and take a shower himself. He did that as fast as he could, then he got Remus out of the water, dried him and put him to bed. Remus sighed and was asleep in a matter of seconds. Sirius covered him up and kissed his forehead tenderly. He pulled the curtains over the large window and left the room. He went down to the kitchen to make himself some breakfast and read the Daily Prophet. Around ten there was an invasion of children, among them Harry of course, and he brought Ron, Hermione, Ginny, Parvati, the twins, Oliver, Lee, Alicia, Angelina and Katie along. They all deposited their brooms outside and greeted Sirius cheerfully.

"Hey there! What makes you invade my quiet home?" he asked them.

"PERCY!" they cried in unison.

"Really, he makes us all go crazy, Sirius! You make one single peep inside the common room and he deducts points! It's become a bloody cloister in Gryffindor tower!" said George.

Sirius grinned. This must be torture for the twins. But even Hermione complained.

"He's exaggerating, Sirius, you wouldn't believe it. You could think it's all about him only, really. – How is Remus? Has he had a good night?"

"Yes, Hermione, he's still sleeping though, so I will have to ask you all not to be too loud and boisterous here either until he wakes up."

"What's wrong with Professor Lupin?" asked Alicia.

"He's not been feeling too well last night," Sirius said.

"Oh, I'm sorry to hear that. I hope he gets better quickly."

"I'm sure he will. In any case right now he's sleeping."

They moved over to the living room and played some games until Remus came down the stairs later on to find his home invaded by a bunch of teenagers. They all came over to ask him if he felt better.

"Yes, yes, thank you. I'll be up and about in no time," he said, "what made you come over?"

"Percy! Our brother behaves like the biggest prat on earth," Ron said.

"What's he doing?"

"Demanding absolute quiet in the common room. From before breakfast until long past bedtime. He wants to get a huge score on his NEWTS, therefore all of us have to suffer with him."

"Let's hope he gets it, otherwise he'll be absolutely unbearable!" George said.

"But if he gets it, he will be just as unbearable, George! And Mum will be worse than ever!" Fred added.

"Oh yes, I forgot, she'll rub perfect Percy in as much as she possibly can. She expects us to get as many OWLS as Percy did. He got 12."

"That was my score, too…" Remus said.

"Really? Wow! You must have been pretty good at school then," Angelina remarked.

"He was third over all in the end and beat me to it… it was probably one of Gryffindor's best years as we held the four first places," Sirius said.

"Wow, that's really hard to get! We'll have some concurrence, mainly from Ravenclaw. Terry Boot is doing very fine and so does Lisa Turpin. Then there's Ernie McMillan who's always pretty good, too. He's Hufflepuff," said Hermione.

"No Slytherins?"

"Only Blaise Zabini, but he doesn't dare to score too well, because Malfoy has them under his thumb," said Ron.

"But Blaise and Millicent have told him off fairly nicely a couple of weeks back, remember?" asked Harry.

"What happened?" asked Katie.

"Well, it was in Care of Magical Creatures and Malfoy was absolutely livid, because Sirius had stopped the charges against Hagrid's hippogriff. Malfoy thought his Dad would be able to bully the Committee for the Disposal of Dangerous Creatures into a death sentence for Buckbeak."

"And you stopped him, Sirius?" asked Alicia.

"Yep. Malfoy used to have a prominent ally in the Ministry through which he practically got everything he wanted. But Fudge is gone now, so Malfoy has lost that help. I talked the members of the Committee out of it, they gave me enough evidence of Malfoy's deeds to silence him quite effectively. He's done some stuff in written, so he foolishly gave them ammunition. McNair is fuming of course. He's the executioner and he's most probably a Death Eater, just like Malfoy."

"But Malfoy was cleared," said Lee.

"Oh yes, of course he was cleared. But mainly because he bribed Fudge. If all those trials would be rolled up again and some questions would be asked under Veritaserum there would be a whole different picture of some of our prominent wizarding families. I can name at least ten persons who were acquitted of being Death Eaters even though each and every one of them carries the Dark Mark on their forearms," Sirius said and he sounded very bitter.

"Oh dear… do you think you could do this? Roll these cases up again?" asked Katie.

"No. I'm no lawyer and I would have a hard time finding one who would be willing to do it and I would have to pay that lawyer or team of lawyers a lot of my own money, so no thank you. But it definitely does not add to my well being, to know that these people went free all the way while I have been locked up in that hellhole for twelve years."

Sirius ended the discussion a while later and asked if they were in the mood for lunch. Remus, who had been nibbling on some toast definitely was. Sirius decided that for that many surprise guests he had only either spaghetti or risotto to offer. They finally decided on spaghetti, because it would be done much faster.

It didn't take long, because there was a lot of help. Remus enlarged the table so it would hold fourteen persons. The teens laid the table. Remus went to reply to a floo call.

"Remus, are you alright?" asked Poppy Pomfrey.

"Hello, Poppy. Yes, thank you, I'm fine. The potion was okay."

"I'm glad to hear that, Remus! Have a nice day then."

"You too, Poppy!"

They sat down to eat soon after and then someone asked:

"Can we play Quidditch?"

"Sure, why not?" Sirius said.

"But we won't play against the whole of the Gryffindor team, that would be highly unfair!" Ron protested.

"No, we won't, we mix up," Oliver promised.

In the end it was decided that Remus played seeker with Ron as keeper, Angelina, Katie and Hermione were to be chasers on his team, Sirius and Fred played beater. The other team would consist of Harry as the seeker, Oliver as the keeper, Parvati, Ginny and Alicia as the chasers and George played beater with Lee. Sirius brought out the Quidditch balls he had bought shortly before. He looked forward to the afternoon, this would be fun. Remus had been quite an accomplished seeker at a time when he and Lily would alternate playing on the Quidditch team. And it would be a complete surprise for Harry who thought he had an easy job.

He released the balls and everyone was up in the air. Sirius had already set up goal posts a month before, at the opposite ends of the garden. He had placed a ward behind them, which would keep the balls inside the field. Ron and Oliver took their positions in front of the goals and Ginny had caught the Quaffle first. She passed on to Alicia, who threw the Quaffle to Parvati. They moved forward to Ron's goal quite swiftly, but he saved when Alicia aimed at the left hoop. He threw the ball out to Angelina, who passed it on to Hermione and then they darted in the other direction. Angelina scored the first goal for Remus' team. They were called to watch out though, as the Quaffle was headed right back to the other end of the garden. Sirius and Fred got hold of the Bludgers and sent them off to obstruct the girls, but this time Ginny got through and scored against her brother, grinning as she turned around fisting the air. For a while the game went on between the chasers, but then Remus, who had been looking for the Snitch and only watching Harry out of the corner of his eyes, saw the golden glimmer on the other end of the pitch. A quick surreptitious glance told Remus that Harry hadn't seen it yet. Remus continued on as if he were still searching. Then, with one swift dive, he went down and had the little ball in his fist.

"Got the Snitch, ladies and gentlemen!" he called and showed it.

His team had won by 210 to 50 points.

Not even Harry's Firebolt had been fast enough to get there. Sirius grinned, as they landed to analyse the game. Oliver made quite the big eyes. He looked at Harry, who grinned sheepishly and shrugged his shoulders. Sirius gave his lover a quick kiss.

"Knew you'd be surprised – he was playing seeker for the Gryffindor team on and off for two years. And in seventh year he helped win the cup. In sixth it was your Mum, Harry."

"Oh you sly thing, you!" Harry was offended, "You could have told me!"

Remus grinned.

"Can't give all my secrets away, Harry."

"That was great, Professor! I should have recognised your name, after all, I've seen the players of all of Gryffindor's years back to about 1950…" Oliver said.

"Thank you, Oliver. It was fun. Do you want another round? I think it was a fair split of the team, and you were all playing rather well!"

"Siri almost caught me with an awfully vicious Bludger," Harry complained.

"Well, you need to keep your eyes wide open, youngling," Sirius commented.

"You must have been a scary beater in your time," Fred said, "you did some pretty daring manoeuvres."

"He was! Racing along the pitch in a maddening speed, too!" Remus told them.

"Okay, let's play again. That was quite short!"

They played another match and this time Harry beat Remus to the Snitch. They were both going for it, but Harry was a bit faster, because of his broom. When they all came down, Remus checked the time and said:

"Well, you have to go back to the school if you want to get there by dinner time."

"Yes, unfortunately. We don't want to get into trouble, so shortly before the last game, that would only play into the hands of the Slytherins," said Oliver.

"But that was fun! Can we do that again?" asked Alicia.

"Anytime! It's really been fun!" said Sirius.

Remus glanced at him. This afternoon had done Sirius better than most of the things they had done since they were reunited. He was pleased to see his lover's eyes sparkle and his cheeks coloured with a flush from the workout. He nodded:

"How about the next Hogsmeade weekend?" he suggested.

"Prepare yourself for an invasion!" Harry said, grinning.

"We'll have the pumpkin juice and butterbeer ready," Sirius promised.

Then the teenagers were off, riding their brooms back to Hogwarts. Remus looked after them and then turned back to Sirius, who stretched out his hand and led Remus back inside when he took it. Remus closed the door. Sirius went on to the kitchen and pulled out his wand to put water in the kettle and heat it. Remus got out the teapot and the cups, both waited for the tea to steep and then poured two mugs full. Remus sat down at the table.

"You were doing fine, Remus, after the full moon night…" Sirius remarked.

"I'm a bit tired now, though, but it's a good form of tired. I think I'll just go to sleep right away. – I have to admit I thought you were a bit childish to set up the goal hoops, but I'm glad you did!"

"I re-awoke your Quidditch fever, did I?"

"You did. Happy?"

"Completely. I think I might just join you…"

They drank their tea and went up to their bedroom. Both undressed and went for a quick shower, then straight to bed. Sirius lazily pointed his wand to the window to draw the curtains closed.

* * *

The students meanwhile got back to the castle and were able to slip in, looking like they'd come from the Quidditch pitch. They were all flushed, but they went straight to the Great Hall for dinner. Percy accosted them and wanted to know where they were. 

"Somewhere, where you couldn't boss us around, Percy! The common room has become a prison and we don't like prisons at all! You could study in your own dorm, if you so need it and if you need all that quiet. You're being highly unfair to all of us," George declared.

George's statement gave other Gryffindors the courage to speak up for themselves, too. Percy had to hear he was not a head boy, he was being a tyrant and that he should just stop being so unfair to the rest of them. After that, Percy held a bit back until about two weeks before the exams.

But there was the Easter break first and the much awaited match between Gryffindor and Slytherin. Naturally, Remus and Sirius came up to see it. The Weasleys were there, too, to see their boys in the last game of the year. And Gryffindor won the cup for the first time in several years, Harry had been able to wait to catch the Snitch and to keep Malfoy away from it long enough to get enough points to win. They were all out of their minds of happiness. Harry was in bliss! His fellow team-mates were just as exuberant. And for some time the common room was a happy place again.

Until Percy demanded silence again. They all needed to study for exams. The third years had a tough week ahead of them, with every subject taking half a day for the exam. Hermione had finally reached a breaking point and was just barely getting through hers. But they made it to the last day. Remus had them on the Friday morning. He had set up an obstacle course, with all of the dark creatures they had been taught about during the year. He smiled at Harry who had gone through it flawlessly.

"Well done, Harry, full marks!"

Harry beamed. He waited next to Remus to see how his friends fared. He already had the pleasure to see Malfoy struggle with the Kappas. Now Ron had a slight problem with the Hinkypunk, but got through well otherwise. Hermione did everything perfectly well, until she reached the trunk with the Boggart. Which gave her quite some problems, as she came running out of the trunk, screaming.

"Hermione! Whatever happened?" asked Remus.

"Professor McGonagall! She said I'd failed in all of my subjects!" she cried.

"Calm down, Hermione, it's only a Boggart!"

Harry put his arms around her and soothed her, too. She calmed down and Remus informed her, that she would still get 95.

"You've done everything alright, just not the Boggart."

"Thank you, Remus."

He smiled at her and watched them go back to the castle for their lunch. And after the lunch, all that remained was one more subject. Harry had to go up to the North Tower for the Divination exam. He had to wait to the very end until Trelawney called him up, and while he looked into the crystal ball and invented something he saw, she asked him a few questions and was about to dismiss him, when she fell into a trance and started to speak in a very strange voice, one that Harry wouldn't have thought was hers:

"The Dark Lord lies alone and friendless, abandoned by his followers. His servant has been chained these twelve years. Tonight, before midnight, the servant will break free and set out to rejoin his master. The Dark Lord will rise again with his servant's aid, greater and more terrible than ever before. Tonight… before midnight… the servant… will set out… to rejoin… his master… "

Harry was shocked and stared at her. He asked her about that prophecy, but she just waved him off as being foolish and sent him away. Harry left the tower hurriedly and all but ran back to the Gryffindor tower, where he found Ron and Hermione waiting for him to return from his last exam. He panted and wanted to tell them immediately about what Trelawney had predicted.

"Harry, what's up? You're all agitated!" Hermione said.

"You won't believe this," Harry said between heavy breathing, "but Trelawney just told me that tonight before midnight, Voldemort's servant would set out to aid him back to life! What should we do?"

"Go to Dumbledore, tell Remus and send Sirius a note about it," Hermione said immediately.

"So you think it's important, too? She said she didn't say anything of that sort, but I heard her, really and truly, I'm telling you. It sounded so real, it was frightening. She said that Voldemort would be rising again with that servant's help!"

"That does sound frightening. Tell Sirius and Remus, Harry!" Hermione repeated.

Harry sat down and wrote the prediction down for Sirius and Remus. They went to find Hedwig to send the note and then they went to find Dumbledore's office. They didn't know the password, of course, but then Dumbledore came down the stairs, so they could get hold of him.

"Calm down, children. Now, once more, please tell me, Harry, what happened?"

"Well, I had to go for my Divination exam and when I was just finished it seemed that Professor Trelawney wanted to let me go, but then she became very funny, strange, and then she said that tonight Voldemort's servant would set out and run to his aid and help him to a new life and then he would rise again more terrible than ever. And then she said it again, tonight before midnight… do you think that this was a real prediction?"

"You know, that might be one. Who'd have thought it. That brings her total of real predictions up to two. I should offer her a pay rise."

He rather confused the children, but then thanked Harry:

"Thank you for telling me, Harry, this might be an important information. Have you come straight from your exam?"

"No, we've written it down for Sirius and Remus. And then we passed by the owlery and sent Hedwig. Then we came to you."

"Okay. Now don't talk about it with others, you'd probably only start a panic. I'm passing the information on to Arthur Weasley. Now you'd better get out to the grounds, children, the weather is so beautiful, you don't want to hang around inside all the time."

"Thank you, Professor."

The children went on their way, and Dumbledore pondered the prediction. He mused which of the Dark Lord's servants could be meant. Since Voldemort's downfall almost all of the Death Eaters who had been able to go free had kept themselves mostly inconspicuous, especially Lucius Malfoy, who wanted to look cleaner than clean. Dumbledore was sure he wasn't the one, as Malfoy must have secretly been glad to actually be rid of his master.

* * *

Sirius got Harry's note just a few minutes after it was sent. Hedwig soared into the open double doors of the living room, seeing Sirius at the piano and went directly to land on his shoulder. 

"Hello, Hedwig! – Oh, you have a letter for me? Thank you, my girl."

Remus came back from work, just as Sirius read the note for the second time.

"Hi, sweetheart!" he called, "What's up?"

Sirius stood up from the piano, offered Hedwig his arm and she hopped on to be carried over to the kitchen. He gave Remus a kiss on the way and passed him Harry's letter. While Remus read it, Sirius offered Hedwig a biscuit which she nibbled from his hand. He caressed her wonderful plumage and she hooted contentedly. Sirius quickly wrote a short note that he got Harry's message and wished him and his friends a nice weekend.

"You're a swell girl, Hedwig. Now off you go back to Harry!"

"Sirius, I really wonder which of them could it be? It does sound like a real prediction."

"It does, doesn't it? I have no idea. There's still so many of them out there."

They received their reply the following morning. Sirius got up at half past nine to make breakfast and let the owls in which were waiting outside of the dining room window. Sirius took the mail and the Daily Prophet and scanned the front page. And woke Remus with his scream!

"**AAAAAARRRRRGH!**"

Remus jumped out of the bed and ran out of the room and down the stairs.

"**Sirius**! What happened now?"

"Read this, Moony!"

Remus took the proffered Daily Prophet and read:

**Peter Pettigrew escaped!**

**

* * *

**

A/N - As shocking as that may sound - but this is the end of the story - I actually have a fourth year sequel partly written, but I'm hanging on with it because of a terrible writer's block in some parts of it. You'll have to just wait and see


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